There is no worse place for an intelligence service like CIA to be than on Page 1, above the fold in your daily newspaper. – Michael Hayden
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
George Tenet was actually a very strong centralizing force. If you met George by personality, George met with the president six days out of seven: nontrivial attribute inside the federal government. And George was head of the CIA. – Michael Hayden
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
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
Despite a campaign that was based on a very powerful promise of transparency, President Obama, and again in my view quite correctly, has used the state secrets argument in a variety of courts, as much as President Bush. – Michael Hayden
An intelligence analyst may attribute an attack to al Qaeda, whereas a policy maker could opt for the more general ‘extremist.’ – Michael Hayden
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
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
President Obama came to office with a strong belief that America had overreached, that we had become too involved. It matched the national mood, and indeed, there was some evidence that it was true. – Michael Hayden
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
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
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
