Hayden may continue to head CIA

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Obama May Keep CIA Chief. Ugggh.
By Noah Shachtman
December 08, 2008 | 1:06:43 PM
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/us-news-says-th.html

U.S. News says that team Obama might ask CIA chief Michael Hayden to
stay on for a while. Let's hope not. Not only does the man have a
history of condoning torture and misleading Congress, as Think Progress
notes. But, in his role as head of the National Security Agency, he made
a pair of titanic blunders.

Before 9/11, Hayden shut down virtually all of the domestic
eavesdropping efforts -- even though he could have gotten warrants to do
so from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Efforts to snoop on
known Al Qaeda operatives, like 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and
Salem al-Hazmi, were cut short. "Hayden's decision to secretly turn a
deaf ear to nearly all international conversations entering and leaving
the U.S. -- even when they involved known terrorists with the country --
would have momentous consequences," NSA-watcher James Bamford writes in
his latest book, The Shadow Factory.

Then, after the 2001 terror attacks, Hayden pulled a 180. At his
direction, his agency began a widespread, multi-faceted operation to
monitor all kinds of domestic phone calls and e-mails. This time, he
ignored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court entirely.  "I think
there was a degree of overcompensation, from performing too carefully
before 9/11 to trying to make up for it by going to the opposite extreme
and eavesdropping without warrants, doing whatever the administration
asked," Bamford told Danger Room in October.

As TalkLeft notes, that warantless wiretapping was one of the reasons
Senator Barack Obama voted against Hayden's confirmation as CIA director
in 2006.




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