Gen. Hayden Explains the NSA on Fox News Sunday

February 5, 2006 Military, Military Support & Patriotism, Telling It Like it Is, Video Comments

Chris Wallace had Gen. Hayden, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, on Fox News Sunday today. Chris did a good job of grilling Gen. Hayden on issues of the NSA wire-tapping, intelligence that is gathered, probable cause, and the legitimacy of the program.

Chris brings up a Washington Post article that recently questioned the validity and legality of intelligence gathering.

Chris: Is there a broad, wide-scale electronic net that you put out that means you intercept lots of phone calls or communications involving Americans, or is there not?

Gen. Hayden: Chris, Iâ€™m glad you asked and Iâ€™ve tried to point this out in the past. Let me try to make this very, very clear. About the last 3rd of the Post article is an excursion along the lines youâ€™ve just described; that we somehow grab the content of the communications and then use the content of the communications to determine which of the communications we really want to listen to. That is NOT true.

“When NSA goes after the content of a communication under this authorization from the President, the NSA has already established its reasons for being interested in that specific communication. Iâ€™ve said in other places, this is not a drift-net over Lackawanna, or Freemont or Deerbornâ€¦.sifting allâ€¦grabbing all communications then sifting them out. This is very specific, and very targeted, when it comes to the collection of the contents of the communications entering or leaving the United States .

Chris: I just want to ask this in a slightly different way. Do you have a specific reason to believe that there is an Al Qaeda connection to every communication leaving an American that you intercept?

Gen. Hayden: Under this program thatâ€™s the only justification we can use to target a specific communication; that a reasonable person, and in this case, an analyst , with all the facts available to him or her at the time, has cause to believe that one or both of these communications are Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda affiliates.

But of course, this will fall on deaf ears of the looney left in this country. But this was a good interview, and Chris didn’t pull any punches.

Video here

Also at Political Teen, Stop the ACLU, and Cao’s Blog.