When you look at Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) encryption battle with the FBI from a security standpoint, Former NSA and CIA director General Michael Hayden is siding with Apple.

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“You can argue this on constitutional grounds. Does the government have the right to do this? Frankly, I think the government does have a right to do it. You can do balancing privacy and security… dead men don’t have a right to privacy. I don’t use those lenses. My lens is the security lens, and frankly, it’s a close but clear call that Apple’s right on just raw security grounds,” he said.

With concerns over cybersecurity becoming the biggest threat to the U.S., Hayden says the government should make a tradeoff.

“I think Apple is technologically correct when they say doing what the FBI wants them to do in this case will make their technology, their encryption, overall weaker than it would otherwise be. So I get why the FBI wants to get into the phones… but this may be a case where we’ve got to give up some things in law enforcement and even counter terrorism in order to preserve this aspect, our cybersecurity.”