There is no part of the executive branch that more exists on the outer edge of executive prerogative than the American intelligence community - the intelligence community, CIA, covert action. My literal responsibility as director of CIA with regard to covert action was to inform the Congress - not to seek their approval, to inform.Michael Hayden
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At the end of the 30 Years War then, Europe broadly decided to separate the sacred from the secular in its political culture. I know that is an oversimplification, but it is instructive, and it led to a growth in religious tolerance that has characterized the best of Western life since.Michael Hayden
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My life experience confirms that the U.S. government frequently overclassifies data. But that's a stronger argument for not dumping large volumes of government traffic on an unclassified personal server than it is a justification for retroactively challenging classification decisions.Michael Hayden
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When I was at the CIA I asked my civilian advisory board to tackle some tough questions. Among the toughest: In a political culture that every day demands more transparency and more public accountability from every aspect of national life, could American intelligence continue to survive and succeed? That jury is still out.Michael Hayden
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In the Cold War, a lot of Soviet actions could be explained as extensions of Czarist imperial ambitions, but that didn't stop us from studying Marxism in theory and Communism in practice to better understand that adversary.Michael Hayden
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The point I wanted to make was, as we have moved forward on the war on terrorism, FISA has been increasingly effective in terms of results.Michael Hayden
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Access to the security clearance database would disgorge even more detailed personal information, including the foreign contacts of American officials.Michael Hayden
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President Obama and his successors are dependent on the 100,000-plus people inside the American intelligence community - the people Edward Snowden betrayed.Michael Hayden
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NSA is a very conservative culture legally. Our lawyers at NSA were notorious for their conservatism up through the morning of September 11th, 2001. The single most consistent criticism of the NSA legal office by our congressional oversight committee was that our legal office was too conservative.Michael Hayden
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Renditions before and since 9/11 share some basic features. They have been conducted lawfully, responsibly and with a clear and single purpose: Get terrorists off the street and gain intelligence on those still at large. Our detention and interrogation programs flow from the same inescapable logic.Michael Hayden
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The question is how much of your privacy and your convenience and your commerce do you want your nation's security apparatus to squeeze in order to keep you safe? And it is a choice that we have to make.Michael Hayden
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Anger can be a useful emotion; it's built into our genetic code to help with self preservation. But it can also be destructive, even when it is justified.Michael Hayden
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Presidents get to decide how their intelligence is served up to them, and it's the job of intelligence to adjust.Michael Hayden
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National security looks different from the Oval Office than it does from a hotel room in Iowa.Michael Hayden
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People have a right to privacy, but they also have a right to live. Fundamentally, we need cybersecurity and need to secure communications as well.Michael Hayden
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The arc of technology is in the direction of unbreakable encryption, and no laws are going to get in the way of that reality.Michael Hayden
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One of the things that distinguishes the CIA from the State Department is that the CIA is both asked to, and authorized to, steal secrets. So if the question is whether the CIA steals secrets, the answer is yes.Michael Hayden
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My time in war zones have been fleeting and infrequent. I've been to Iraq. I've been to Afghanistan. I've been to other places where I've collected hazardous duty pay.Michael Hayden
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To be perfectly candid, we're better at stealing other people's secrets than anyone else in the world. But we self-limit. We steal secrets to keep our citizens free and safe.Michael Hayden
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Right after 9/11, I mean, every agency can give their own gradation, but a nice, popular rule of thumb is everybody doubled down. I ended up in NSA with about twice as much money as I had prior to 9/11.Michael Hayden
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It was a long, difficult summer of 2004. That was a leap year, so several things happened - the Olympics and presidential election. And right in the middle of the election campaign - and I don't think this was an accident - the 9/11 Commission delivers its report.Michael Hayden
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As director of CIA, I was responsible for everything done in the agency's name, and it didn't matter whether that was done by an agency employee, a government contractor, a liaison service on our behalf, or a source on our behalf.Michael Hayden
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The first thing I did after getting a Master's degree - and the Air Force was very kind; they let me stay on at school to get a Master's - I went to Denver for the Armed Forces Air Intelligence School, six months. Fundamentally, we had a major effort on in Southeast Asia, and this was training folks to support that effort.Michael Hayden
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I believe we do have a great intelligence service. Is it good enough in all circumstances? Of course not. We live in the human condition. We try to make it better each day.Michael Hayden
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When asked if I miss being in government, I usually try to lighten the moment by responding that I awake most days, read the paper, and then observe that, 'It's yet another great day to be the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.'Michael Hayden
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When the intelligence is making a policymaker too happy, he ought to challenge it, and even if he doesn't, the intelligence briefer needs to launch a red team against his own conclusions to see if he can hold his ground.Michael Hayden
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Most of the 9/11 hijackers weren't married, none of them had families inside the United States, and there's no evidence that any family members moved before, during, or after 9/11.Michael Hayden
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Apple and Google want to create encryption for which they could not provide you the key. Their business model will not survive if the American government has a special relationship with them that requires them to surrender this kind of information.Michael Hayden
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Right after 9/11, I mean, every agency can give their own gradation, but a nice, popular rule of thumb is everybody doubled down. I ended up in the NSA with about twice as much money as I had prior to 9/11.Michael Hayden
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What Edward Snowden did amounted to the greatest hemorrhaging of legitimate American secrets in the history of my nation.Michael Hayden
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A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas, and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.Michael Hayden
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The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran had paused its nuclear weaponization work also reported with high confidence that such work had been going on through 2003. How far did they get? That's an important question, but I fear that the Iranians will never answer it, and we will not insist that they do.Michael Hayden
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Xi agreed to the American definition of legitimate espionage. In other words, you don't use the power of the state to steal secrets for profit.Michael Hayden
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I enjoyed writing in school. I don't know that I was all that good at it in school. I worked at it later. I feel comfortable writing now. I enjoy writing now. I suspect, like most college students, I viewed writing then to be more tedious.Michael Hayden
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Dissenting analysts passionate about their positions are not unusual in the American intelligence community. Their presence - or even the rejection - of their favored positions is not prima face evidence of politicization.Michael Hayden
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American political elites feel very empowered to criticize the American intelligence community for not doing enough when they feel in danger, and as soon as we've made them feel safe again, they feel equally empowered to complain that we're doing too much.Michael Hayden
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Nothing more threatens Vladimir Putin than not being able to track his own citizens.Michael Hayden
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I blame the Russians for a lot, but pinning the creation of ISIS on them is a murky, tenuous, triple-carom bank shot at best.Michael Hayden
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The intelligence community is governed by the same legal and ethical standards as the rest of American government and society, but an operational imperative is here, too. An intelligence community charged with global responsibilities cannot be successful without diversity of thought, culture and language.Michael Hayden
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I don't know if the European Union contributes a great deal to espionage. At the union level, they talk about commerce and privacy. But to keep citizens safe, that remains a responsibility back in national capitals.Michael Hayden
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It's hard to brief in the Oval. You know, you can't - no visual aids, hard to roll out something in front of somebody.Michael Hayden
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If we are going to conduct espionage in the future, we are going to have to make some changes in the relationship between the intelligence community and the public it serves.Michael Hayden
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When at the CIA, I was fond of saying that many jihadis join the movement for the same reasons that young Americans join the Crips and the Bloods: youthful alienation, the need to belong to something greater than self, the search for meaningful identity. But it also matters what gang you join.Michael Hayden
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My personal view is that Iran, left to its own devices, will get itself to that step right below a nuclear weapon, that permanent breakout stage, so the needle isn't quite in the red for the international community. And, frankly, that will be as destabilizing as their actually having a weapon.Michael Hayden
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Global security can be formed or threatened by heads of state whose wisdom, folly and obsessions shape global events. But often it is the security practitioners, those rarely in the headlines but whose craft and energy quietly break new ground, who keep us safe or put us in peril.Michael Hayden
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This program has been successful in detecting and preventing attacks inside the United States.Michael Hayden
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The attorney general is the only one who can authorize what's called an emergency FISA.Michael Hayden
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In my own private-sector work, I have become intrigued with RIWI, a Canadian based company that surveys random respondents on the Web to measure attitudes in otherwise hard-to-reach places.Michael Hayden
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Before he played CIA Director Saul Berenson on 'Homeland,' a much younger Mandy Patinkin gained some fame as Inigo Montoya, a legendary swordsman, in 'The Princess Bride.'Michael Hayden
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When I was in government, what we would used to mystically call 'the kinetic option' was way down on our list. In my personal thinking - in my personal thinking, I need to emphasize that - I have begun to consider that that may not be the worst of all possible outcomes.Michael Hayden
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