Former NSA chief: Snowden defenders are ‘twentysomethings who haven’t talked to the opposite sex’

[kpete]

Former NSA chief warns of cyber-terror attacks if Snowden apprehended
Michael Hayden, who also headed the CIA, speculates on global hacker response if Edward Snowden brought back to US

................


The former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA speculated on Tuesday that hackers and transparency groups were likely to respond with cyber-terror attacks if the United States government apprehends whistleblower Edward Snowden.

"If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?" said retired air force general Michael Hayden, who from 1999 to 2009 ran the NSA and then the CIA, referring to "nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years".

"They may want to come after the US government, but frankly, you know, the dot-mil stuff is about the hardest target in the United States," Hayden said, using a shorthand for US military networks. "So if they can't create great harm to dot-mil, who are they going after? Who for them are the World Trade Centers? The World Trade Centers, as they were for al-Qaida."

Hayden provided his speculation during a speech on cybersecurity to a Washington group, the Bipartisan Policy Center, in which he confessed to being deliberately provocative.



MORE:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/06/nsa-director-cyber-terrorism-snowden?INTCMP=SRCH


well, they haven't been listening (tee hee hee) to this 62 year old who talks to the opposite sex on a regular basis
peace, kp

[Warpy]

1. Obviously not listening to anyone who remembers Ellsberg

and knows the price he paid for blowing the whistle on a government gone completely out of control. As I recall, they said the same insulting and off target things about Ellsberg's defenders.

And yes, I do equate them despite the constant shoot-the-messenger drumbeat here on DU.

It's nice to know bureaucrats who've gotten their noses pulled out of joint haven't changed at all since the 70s.

[warrant46]

47. Michael Hayden

He is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group, a security consultancy co-founded by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

In May 2006, USA Today reported that, under Hayden's leadership, the NSA created a domestic telephone call database. During his nomination hearings, Hayden defended his actions to Senator Russ Feingold and others, stating that he had relied upon legal advice that the White House order to build the database was supported by Article Two of the United States Constitution executive branch powers (in which the President must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed&quot , overriding legislative branch statutes forbidding warrantless surveillance of domestic calls, which included the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Previously, this action would have required a warrant from a FISA court. The stated purpose of the database was to eavesdrop on international communications between persons within the U.S. and individuals and groups overseas in order to locate terrorists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hayden_%28general%29

[sabrina 1]

53. Lots of money in 'funding' at stake of old Hayden and Chertoff and Booz Allen et al.

They're getting really bad at this stuff. It sounds so old and stale now, hardly worth responding to.

All these old Bush privatizers who ended up in 'security' positions on our Government should have a teeny % of the credibility that Snowden has.

They blew that long, long ago.

*yawn*

Get some new material. We pay enough for it to be at least entertaining.

[snappyturtle]

2. I'm 65 and they haven't talked with me either kpete! nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. Judging by this snippet alone,

God help us all if this is the level of intellect of the people we entrust with wielding the awesome powers of the NSA. I wonder if Hayden addressed at all any of the concerns of citizens in regard to the 4th Amendment in his speech. If this is all he had to offer, it confirms the idea that these powers are simply too great to give to the leaders in our government.

[liberal_at_heart]

6. not necessarily the level of intellect. It's the level of arrogance and greed for power that usually

produces comments like that.

[Vinnie From Indy]

58. I stand corrected!

You are correct about using the proper descriptor "arrogance". Hayden is not stupid.

[Demeter]

68. Arrogance is by definition Stupid

So you are both correct!

[cantbeserious]

4. Spoke To The Opposite Sex Several Times Today - Obviously Not Listening To Me

eom

[NorthCarolina]

70. The "twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years" reference

is his round-about way of saying "Gay".

[JackRiddler]

5. Check out a picture of Michael Hayden, Stud!

[Generic Other]

7. The only contact with the opposite sex this guy has

is when he's reading their emails, listening to their phone conversations and watching them on their own webcams. FUCKING ASS PERVERTS.

[olddots]

15. don't hate him because he is beautiful

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Never mind

That's what I get for reading this when tired...

[JackRiddler]

23. Even though it's in the vein...

of the Weiner's wiener bullshit we've seen dominate the New York election coverage for weeks. It's good as a Kardashian etc. type story. But no, they won't be running this.

[hobbit709]

28. It's Cecil the Turtle from Warner Brothers cartoons.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Which is why it's VITAL that the NSA work with the DEA to prosecute medical marijuana patients!

Last edited Wed Aug 7, 2013, 02:14 AM - Edit history (2)

Because otherwise, the TERRORISTS WIN!!!!

[AppleBottom]

21. Because they all LIED to us

When they swore that the Patriot Act would only be used to prevent terrorism. Just like the lies they're telling us now about state surveillance.

[woo me with science]

31. +1000000 Lying liars.

Lying LIARS.

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.

[Zorra]

9. Maybe he has a serious bug up his ass from Cheney telling him to stand down on 9/11. nt

[JimDandy]

10. THIS is the kind of thinking we had from the person who was running these agencies.

No wonder we're all being spied on... He sounds paranoid and afraid of all of US!

[AppleBottom]

22. He's afraid of losing control of the authoritarian government he helped to establish.

And to think we have Democrats helping to continue and expand this insanity.

[DirkGently]

11. Guy sounds terribly intimidated by the possibility of dissent. n/t

[Rex]

12. Hayden is an idiot, glad he is gone.

Like hiring Chief Wiggum to run the NSA. Another Bush failure holdover.

[JDPriestly]

13. Hey! And you are young compared to me.

Anybody who loves the Constitution, anybody who ever took a course in constitutional law, anybody who grew up when everybody had shades and curtains and would never have thought of leaving them open after dusk, nearly everyone over 40 who has any memory of their crazy youth . . . . . People need privacy. The government should not be snooping on our communications. The government should not be collecting our metadata.

[SoapBox]

16. Hilarious!

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. So I am just twenty something?

That's good to know.

As to not talking to the opposite sex...I guess I will have to assume I imagined the whole marriage ceremony and the last few years.

[AppleBottom]

19. Wow... Belligerence from such low human beings in high places.

Decent human beings typically feel shame for indecent acts.

[AppleBottom]

20. Something tells me that the chances of seeing a UFO is more likely

Than see this story run on the headlines of American newspapers or websites.

[n2doc]

24. Who is he, this guy?

[Harmony Blue]

33. LOL!

The sad thing is this guy needs to look in the mirror.

[CanonRay]

25. Actually, Mike

I'm in my 60's and have been married over 30 years. And Mike? You're an idiot.

[Zorra]

26. Is that some sort of childish attempt to insult this group of twentysomethings by

implying that they are gay?

What else could it mean?

[deurbano]

35. I think he means they are big losers who can't "score" (Like Snowden... oh, wait.)

I don't think the reality that some are gay even occurred to him because he seems about as out of touch as one could be.

[Newsjock]

27. His heterosexism is startling but not surprising

That's right, slam Teh Kool Kidz by saying they just can't find a good girl. That went out of style a couple of decades ago ... and, besides, it also shows how clearly out of touch he is about many of the very Kool Kidz who he despises (and, perhaps, I dare add, who he might even evny just a tiny lil' bit).

[PoliticAverse]

29. Oh look the guy who didn't think the 4th amendment mentioned 'probable cause' is back...

[wtmusic]

30. Sounds like an impotent sixty-something rant

Michael, please tend your garden and STFU.

[Bluenorthwest]

32. These DC types can't get through any speech without homophobic bullshit worthy

of the smallest and most dogmatic minds on Earth. So he hates gay people, that's a given. He is after all in the military a culture that had to be forced to treat others with respect under the force of law, his culture so bigoted it took Congress to make them behave like grown up people.

[hatrack]

34. Go ahead and say it, Mike: "You idealistic, stupid faggots, you!"

[deurbano]

36. So this is an example of those (at the highest levels) who are keeping our country "safe."

Do they all share this absolute and utter contempt for the actual people in said country?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

37. Gee, Daniel Ellsberg doesn't look 20 something.

[Oilwellian]

38. Who's the enemy again?

One can't live a dignified life without privacy. Of course Mr. No Probable Cause doesn't have a clue what dignity is.

[hughee99]

39. He knows this because if they HAD talked to the opposite sex, the NSA would have recorded it. n/t

[Helen Borg]

41. Is he implying they are gay?

And that being gay causes them to become cyberterrorists or something? What a disgusting frat boy!

[MisterP]

42. no--fratboys are typically athletic, at least

[ecstatic]

46. No. I think he's calling them geeks who are too shy / nerdy to flirt.

[The CCC]

43. Former NSA chief: Snowden defenders are ‘twentysomethings who haven’t talked to the opposite sex’

What an arrogant idiot.

[reformist2]

44. How quaint: He's using the 1980 playbook on how to disparage your enemies.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

45. 35 and married. I defend Snowden. . .nice try, dirtbag!

[VWolf]

48. 47 and married here

And I do converse with my wife, although probably not as often as I should!

[Howler]

49. I was just about to say Kpete

That I'm a 54 year old female that has been married for 20 years now.

[BillyRibs]

50. Let me explain this is terms a keen mind like yours would understand.

No, Mr. Genius, I'm 55, My wife and I converse about liars like you often.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

51. I'm 69, just spoke to my wife, and we agree that Snowden is a hero and Hayden is an ass.

[Democracyinkind]

52. From the man who let 9/11 happen...

[Octafish]

60. He did try telling the little turd from Crawford.

New NSA docs contradict 9/11 claims

“I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released," an expert tells Salon

By Jordan Michael Smith
Salon.com
Tuesday, Jun 19, 2012 04:24 PM EDT

Over 120 CIA documents concerning 9/11, Osama bin Laden and counterterrorism were published today for the first time, having been newly declassified and released to the National Security Archive. The documents were released after the NSA pored through the footnotes of the 9/11 Commission and sent Freedom of Information Act requests.

The material contains much new information about the hunt before and after 9/11 for bin Laden, the development of the drone campaign in AfPak, and al-Qaida’s relationship with America’s ally, Pakistan. Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 — but didn’t get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him. The CIA materials directly contradict the many claims of Bush officials that it was aggressively pursuing al-Qaida prior to 9/11, and that nobody could have predicted the attacks. “I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released, because they paint a picture of the CIA knowing something would happen before 9/11, but they didn’t get the institutional support they needed,” says Barbara Elias-Sanborn, the NSA fellow who edited the materials.

SNIP...

Former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has taken credit for the drone program that the Bush administration ignored. “Things like working to get an armed Predator that actually turned out to be extraordinarily important, working to get a strategy that would allow us to get better cooperation from Pakistan and from the Central Asians,” she said in 2006. “We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al-Qaida.” Rice claimed that the Bush administration continued the Clinton administration’s counterterrorism policies, a claim the documents disprove. “If the administration wanted to get it done, I’m sure they could have gotten it done,” says Elias-Sanborn.

Many of the documents publicize for the first time what was first made clear in the 9/11 Commission: The White House received a truly remarkable amount of warnings that al-Qaida was trying to attack the United States. From June to September 2001, a full seven CIA Senior Intelligence Briefs detailed that attacks were imminent, an incredible amount of information from one intelligence agency. One from June called “Bin-Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” writes that “[redacted] expects Usama Bin Laden to launch multiple attacks over the coming days.” The famous August brief called “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the US” is included. “Al-Qai’da members, including some US citizens, have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure here,” it says. During the entire month of August, President Bush was on vacation at his ranch in Texas — which tied with one of Richard Nixon’s as the longest vacation ever taken by a president. CIA Director George Tenet has said he didn’t speak to Bush once that month, describing the president as being “on leave.” Bush did not hold a Principals’ meeting on terrorism until September 4, 2001, having downgraded the meetings to a deputies’ meeting, which then-counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke has repeatedly said slowed down anti-Bin Laden efforts “enormously, by months.”

CONTINUED w LINKS...

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/19/new_nsa_docs_reveal_911_truths/

"All right. You've covered your ass now."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1528134

Still, the guy's a stinker, saying that about 20-somethings.

[99th_Monkey]

54. Apparently Mr. Hayden hasn't heard about Snowden's pole-dancing lover? eom

[LittleBlue]

55. And Hayden has relations with farm animals

Why not?

[backscatter712]

56. HURR! SNOWDEN DEFENDERS ARE NERDS!!!

Wow, they're down to that old insult? Weak.

[morningfog]

61. Actually, his comments paint Snowden and hackers as terrorists.

[backscatter712]

62. That too. n/t

[Lugal Zaggesi]

57. "If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden,

and brings him back here to the United States for trial".

Is this guy talking about illegal kidnappings, like Italy put American CIA agents on trial for - and convicted them of serious crimes for?

http://www.france24.com/en/20120919-italy-upholds-convictions-cia-agents-absentia-osama-mustafa-hassan-abu-omar-imam-milan-renditions-usa
LATEST UPDATE: 19/09/2012

Italy's highest court confirmed the guilty verdicts Wednesday of 23 CIA agents tried in absentia for the 2003 abduction of Egyptian imam Osama Mustafa Hassan (pictured) in Milan. The United States has already refused to extradite the agents.

Italy's top court Wednesday confirmed guilty verdicts against 23 CIA agents for the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam in Milan and ordered a re-trial for five Italian ex-spies accused of taking part.

As part of the ruling, the court ordered the seizure of the Italian home of one of the agents, Bob Seldon Lady, former head of the CIA station in Milan.

Notice how the USA ignores legal extradition requests if it suits them.
I bet Russia has.

[Downtown Hound]

59. How would he know?

He hasn't been spying on them or something, has he?

[YOHABLO]

63. What???? I don't get it.

"nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years" WTF is he talking about?

[Fearless]

64. And if they were?

What did that mean exactly.

[shawn703]

65. Nothing like making up a bullshit headline

To rile up people here who don't bother to read the article.

So "hackers and transparency groups were likely to respond with cyber-terror attacks" = people on DU who support Snowden?

Everyone here who is planning on responding with a cyber-attack if Snowden is captured raise your hand please!

[blkmusclmachine]

66. STOOPID

Is he an Obama appointee???

[blkmusclmachine]

67. Cuz he sure sounds like one. Insults and everything.

No change.

[BanzaiBonnie]

69. It's way of putting someone down

Absolutely disrespectful. Saying that twenty-somethings can't possibly KNOW anything. They haven't a clue about the "real world."

I am so tired of these belligerant, good 'ol boy guys who keep supporting the same old crap system.

[GTurck]

71. Sorry, Mr. Hayden....

I am 70 and have been married for 52 years and the things that Snowden has revealed have shaken my world. Whatever his status we are in a very dangerous and critical time in our history.