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Ear to the Ground

Likely New CIA Director Misled Congress on Wiretapping

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Posted on May 6, 2006
Michael Hayden
From nsa.gov

Former NSA Director and current Deputy Director of National Intelligence Michael V. Hayden

Michael Hayden, who will probably replace outgoing CIA chief Porter Goss, told Congress in 2002 that all domestic surveillance was consistent with the FISA law—knowing full well of Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program.

  • The Fraud and False Statements statute (18 U.S.C. 1001) makes Hayden?s misleading statements to Congress illegal, according to a Clinton-era national security official.
  • See a Time article on Hayden’s impending appointment.

  • Think Progress:

    [Our guest blogger, Morton Halperin, was Director of Policy Planning Staff at the State Department and served on the National Security Council under President Clinton. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Johnson.]

    The Bush administration has pulled out all the stops in attempting to defend the NSA?s warrantless domestic spying program. After speeches by President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales, Deputy Director of National Intelligence and former NSA Director General Michael Hayden took another crack at the defense in a speech on Monday. He?s not exactly the ideal choice to restore the administration?s credibility.

    As Think Progress documented back in December, Hayden misled Congress. In his 10/17/02 testimony, he told a committee investigating the 9/11 attacks that any surveillance of persons in the United States was done consistent with FISA.

    At the time of his statements, Hayden was fully aware of the presidential order to conduct warrantless domestic spying issued the previous year. But Hayden didn?t feel as though he needed to share that with Congress. Apparently, Hayden believed that he had been legally authorized to conduct the surveillance, but told Congress that he had no authority to do exactly what he was doing. The Fraud and False Statements statute (18 U.S.C. 1001) make Hayden?s misleading statements to Congress illegal.

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    By rex, May 8, 2006 at 3:56 pm Link to this comment
    (Unregistered commenter)

    Hayden became head of NSA at the time German Intelligence was putting one of Mohammed Atta’s
    roomates under surveillance in Hamburg, Germany
    for involvement in the African Embassy bombings.
    Funny his all-powerful NSA never wiretapped the Hamburg Cell even though no law prevented NSA from eavesdropping in Germany while Atta was calling Osama bin Laden and plotting 9/11.
    Hayden has no history of successful human intelligence operations and has expended billions on computers, electronic surveillance systems and codebreakers who sit in cubicles.
    Does the CIA need this?

    Report this

    By felicity smith, May 7, 2006 at 9:59 am Link to this comment
    (Unregistered commenter)

    Since the day Cheney appointed Rummy as head of DOD, DOD has been in charge of intelligence, foreign and perhaps domestic.  To insure Rummy’s clout, the intelligence apparatus has been split up into smaller, and thus less powerful, parts. It’s an old ploy - to grab and maintain power pit your competition against each other.

    Report this

    By Hilding Lindquist, May 7, 2006 at 5:17 am Link to this comment
    (Unregistered commenter)

    OK, folks, here’s our chance ... this guy—what’s his name? Hayden?—is going to have to come before the U.S. Senate for confirmation.

    Now’s the time to write every Senator we can—starting with the two in our own state—and say we want Hayden grilled on his criminal (that’s what illegal means, doesn’t it?) misleading of Congress.

    I type out my message in my word processor and then cut and paste it into the message box. It’s simple and quick. (Yes, I know most of you know how to do this ... but I want to be as helpful as I can for everybody to get involved.) If anyone has any technical questions on how to contact your US Senator, please contact me via my email address on my blog ... I will try to answer them as best I can.

    I have a copy of the message I use on my blog:

    http://ncswede.blogspot.com/2006/05/re-general-hayden-dear-us-senator.html

    Feel free to use it however you wish in contacting Senators.

    We can do this!

    Report this

    By NEC, May 6, 2006 at 3:40 pm Link to this comment
    (Unregistered commenter)

    Another operations officer.  CIA is going to be disbanded and it will be the biggest union lay off in history.

    Another opertions officer was not needed.  That is the problem and it will take someone outside that to ‘fix’ the agency.

    Report this
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