Former NSA Boss Hayden Says Snowden Likely To Become An Alcoholic Because He's 'Troubled' And 'Morally Arrogant'

from the funny-you-should-say-that dept

Hayden predicted a bleak future for Snowden. Describing the former NSA contractor as a "defector," Hayden also called him "a troubled young man -- morally arrogant to a tremendous degree -- but a troubled young man."



Hayden further compared Snowden's prospects to those of defectors during the Cold War, saying, "I suspect he will end up like most of the rest of the defectors who went to the old Soviet Union: Isolated, bored, lonely, depressed -- and most of them ended up alcoholics."

When I asked how the public could tell security agencies where "the box" should be if they don't have the details of where it is now, Hayden responded, "In a perfect world I would brief the House and Senate intelligence committees and be done with it" because the more scrutiny surveillance programs receive the harder he believes it is to do their jobs.

At one point, Hayden also compared NSA snooping programs to other controversial programs that he says have been accepted by the public. He pointed to targeted killing, which he says two presidents have now signed off on "with some degree of enthusiasm."

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

The Washington Post's Andrea Peterson has some more incredible quotes from former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden , who seems to have a way of saying exactly the wrong thing if he's trying to reassure those who are worried about excessive government surveillance. First up, he continues to attack anyone who feels otherwise. The same guy who insisted that people who were concerned about NSA surveillance were shut-ins who couldn't get laid has apparently decided that he can determine Ed Snowden's mental makeup from afar, despite never having spoken to the guy. He can also predict his future:Of course, Snowden didn't defect. He was more or less forced into Russia by the US pulling his passport. And we should look at who's throwing around claims of being "morally arrogant" here.Meanwhile, elsewhere in the talk, Hayden insisted that the intelligence community wanted to play within "the box" explaining what's legal, and said: "you're going to have to decide where the box is that you want your security services to work in." Of course, when Peterson questioned him on how the public could (a) understand where the box is today in order to have that debate and (b) suggest ways to move the box, Hayden didn't seem that interested:At this point, you get the feeling Hayden must have started to wonder how Peterson could have possibly gotten out of her "internet shut-in" basement and braved the outside world to go see him speak.Oh and then there's the bit where he insists that the public is actually fine with NSA snooping... just like they're fine with targeted killings. Except, what he really meant by "the public" was "American Presidents."Note to Hayden from the internet shut-in community: having a President "enthusiastically" support his own ability to authorize spying on everyone and killing people overseas is, uh, somewhat different than suggesting the public supports it.

Filed Under: ed snowden, michael hayden