Gabriel Black — Former NSA chief Hayden praises Obama for “doubling down” on Bush-era spying

Michael Hayden, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA), used a lecture at Oxford University Monday to candidly praise the Obama administration for constructing and exponentially strengthening the NSA’s illegal spying apparatus.

Hayden told his Oxford audience that while many people see Obama as being “quite different” than Bush, he had in fact “doubled down” on the NSA’s global espionage system.

In the 90 minute address, titled “My Government, My Security and Me,” Hayden also stressed that there was little support within US government circles for offering any kind of plea deal to former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Referring to the speech delivered by Obama last month announcing supposed “reforms” to the NSA’s operations, Hayden stated, “The president is essentially trading some restraint, some oversight, in order to keep on doing fundamentally what he has been doing.”

Put in the plainest terms: the government is employing some window-dressing to quell popular outrage over the NSA’s colossal ongoing violation of the Constitution and is also trying to ensure that leaks do not threaten the secret program’s legitimacy in the future. As the WSWS noted at the time, “the only measure that is likely to be enacted is a proposal to institute strict new vetting and security policies designed to prevent anyone from following in the footsteps of Edward Snowden.”

World Socialist Web Site
Former NSA chief Hayden praises Obama for “doubling down” on Bush-era spying

Gabriel Black