"Landay: "...the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to violate an American's right against unreasonable searches and seizures..."
Gen. Hayden: "No, actually - the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure."
Landay: "But the --"
Gen. Hayden: "That's what it says."
Landay: "The legal measure is probable cause, it says."
Gen. Hayden: "The Amendment says: unreasonable search and seizure."
Landay: "But does it not say 'probable cause'?"
Gen. Hayden [exasperated, scowling]: "No! The Amendment says unreasonable search and seizure."
Landay: "The legal standard is probable cause, General -- "
Gen. Hayden [indignant]: "Just to be very clear ... mmkay... and believe me, if there's any Amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. Alright? And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. The constitutional standard is 'reasonable'"
and this:
Gen. Michael Hayden refused to answer question about spying on political enemies at National Press Club.
At a public appearance, Bush's pointman in the Office of National Intelligence was asked if the NSA was wiretapping Bush's political enemies. When Hayden dodged the question, the questioner repeated, "No, I asked, are you targeting us and people who politically oppose the Bush government, the Bush administration? Not a fishing net, but are you targeting specifically political opponents of the Bush administration?"
Hayden looked at the questioner, and after a silence called on a different questioner. (Hayden National Press Club remarks, 1/23/06)
5 comments:
Will Senators bring up the NSA issue during the confirmation hearing? After all that might embarrass General Hayden and the Senators might get accused of "pulling a Colbert."
It has become so predictable. Bush (despite the lowest poll numbers of his Presidency) will say "If the Senate plays games with national security by refusing to rubberstamp Hayden, Ahmadinejad might be emboldened to order Hezbollah to launch terror attacks against the US."
And the Senate will sink to a new low by catering to the wishes of the Bush/Cheney crime syndicate.
I hope I'm wrong.
joejoejoe at EW asks the question "Is Gen. Hayden even eligible to be CIA Director?"
He then cites US Code Title 10, Subtitle A, Part II, Ch. 49:
§ 973 Duties: officers on active duty; performance of civil functions restricted
(a) No officer of an armed force on active duty may accept employment if that employment requires him to be separated from his organization, branch, or unit, or interferes with the performance of his military duties.
(b)
(1) This subsection applies—
(A) to a regular officer of an armed force on the active-duty list (and a regular officer of the Coast Guard on the active duty promotion list);
(2)
(A) Except as otherwise authorized by law, an officer to whom this subsection applies may not hold, or exercise the functions of, a civil office in the Government of the United States—
(i) that is an elective office;
(ii) that requires an appointment by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; or
(iii) that is a position in the Executive Schedule under sections 5312 through 5317 of title 5.
...he continues:" CIA Director is confirmed by the Senate. The DIA and CIA are separate agencies under the budget authority of the DNI - yet Gen. Hayden is an active duty officer in the Air Force and reports to the Secretary of Defense. That's a huge conflict. Gen. Hayden was already confirmed by the Senate as Principal Deputy Director DNI but that doesn't make it proper. We don't allow active duty military to run DoD for a reason - civilian control of government is essential to our democracy. Why should CIA be any different?"
Seems a vaild point.
So because Hayden continues to hew to the "reasonableness" standard, rather than the "probable cause" standard, does it not logically follow that the programs he's overseeing do not require warrants?
Because the 4th amendment is quite clear on that matter, warrants must be based on probable cause.
If NSA wiretapping is not, then I'd have to conclude that's because it's being done without a warrant.
I would like some senator to ask this question, "Given, Gen. Hayden, that you seem so adamant in your assertion that the correct Constitutional standard that applied to your duties at the NSA is a so-called "resonableness" one, and not the more stringent "probable cause" that the SC has time and again upheld applies to all warrants for searches and wiretaps in this country, is it correct to say that you believe that such wiretaps at the NSA do not require a warrant?"
I'd love to hear his on-the-record answer to that one. I'm sure it will include the distinction that only calls with at least one foreign-based participant are exempted from FISA warrants, as per the preznit's program. But then I'd follow up with, what about domestic conversations?
noise - i hope you're wrong too
damien - rulez? we don't need your stinking rulez.
viget - i suspect that they've given up on the 'one foreign participant' 'logic' - because there are multiple spying programs, as gonzales noted in his 'i didnt really say what i said' memo. i also think that we need to stop using the word 'wiretapping' - because it gives them a lot of wiggle room.
also note Tice: "RUSSELL TICE: More than likely this was very closely held at the upper echelons at N.S.A., and mainly because these people knew -- General Hayden, Bill Black, and probably the new one, Keith Alexander, they all knew this was illegal. So, you know, they kept it from the populace of N.S.A., because every N.S.A. officer certainly knows this is illegal."
and
"So, you have to ask yourself the question: Why would someone want to go around the FISA court in something like this? I would think the answer could be that this thing is a lot bigger than even the President has been told it is, and that ultimately a vacuum cleaner approach may have been used, in which case you don't get names, and that's ultimately why you wouldn't go to the FISA court. And I think that’s something Congress needs to address. They need to find out exactly how this system was operated and ultimately determine whether this was indeed a very focused effort or whether this was a vacuum cleaner-type scenario."
and
"a very large-scale, you know, suck-up-everything kind of operation."
Tice isnt talking about the Risen program - he's talking about something completely different
This from Wayne Madsen:
"Based on Hayden's past at the NSA, Langley should stand by for psychiatric abuse, more Gestapo-like tactics from imported security personnel from Fort Meade, contractor fraud, FBI "sting" set ups like that which befell NSA Iraqi shop SIGINT analyst Ken Ford, Jr. -- the author of a SIGINT report that stated reports of Iraqi WMDs were not backed up by intercepts of Iraqi communications."
According to Madsen, an innocent Ken Ford had a classified document placed within his home that earned him six years in prison - payback for the SIGINT report. [It sounds credible. Ford was conscientious and always protested his innocence.]
Perhaps Goss can't handle some likely CIA whistleblowers and Hayden has been brought in as the 'hard man' to do the job.
...and there's another interesting angle:
"The CIA's venture capital arm, IN-Q-TEL, which provides CIA money to promising high-tech start-up firms, became the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation for possible massive misappropriation of taxpayer money.... CEO, Amit Yoran, abruptly resigned to "spend more time with his family." Yoran, an Israeli-American, had been on the job for just four months....the company is suspected of steering CIA funds to start-up firms with close ties to the GOP."
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