Former NSA Director: Hackers Will Attack if Snowden is Arrested

The Truth Behind The News

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
August 8, 2013

Retired Air Force General Michael Hayden, who is also the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) warned that if NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden were to be apprehended by the US cyberterrorists would attack.

Hayden was speaking at a Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) meeting when he decried : “I’m just trying to illustrate that you’ve got a group of people out there who make demands, whose demands may not be satisfiable, may not be rational from other points of view, may not be the kinds of things that government can accommodate.”

Currently, Hayden is chair of the BPC Electric Grid Cyber Security Initiative (EGCSI) where knowledge of potential cyber hackers “who haven’t talked to the opposite sex in 5 or 6 years” are waiting in the wings to strike digital infrastructure in the US.

Under Hayden expanded collection of intelligence on suspects foreign and domestic following the attack on 9/11.

Hayden’s program entitled Stellar Wind was the code name for a sensitive compartmentalized unit that gathered information for the President’s Surveillance Program (PSP).

Former President George W. Bush was behind the inception of Stellar Wind; however President Barack Obama has expanded the collection of telecommunications with the assistance of the NSA and the furtherance of spying operations such as the PRISM program.

Hayden claims that hacker groups such as LulzSec, Anonymous, and other “nihilists, anarchists, [and] activists” will respond to any arrest of Snowden.

He said: “If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?” asked Hayden, who also said he was being provocative and “illustrative,” not “predictive. They may want to come after the U.S. government, but frankly, you know, the dot-mil [military networks] stuff is about the hardest target in the United States. So, if they can’t create great harm to dot-mil, who are they going after? Who for them are the World Trade Centers? The World Trade Centers, as they were for Al-Qaeda.”

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch (BBW) commented : “Given the testimony given under oath about what the NSA was doing, it is understandable that Hayden may be showing signs of nerves, as Edward Snowden’s disclosures blow apart assurances that there was no surveillance of American citizens. Perhaps if Mr Hayden had spent more time trying to recruit the people he now so gleefully traduces and compares to terrorists it wouldn’t have been possible to walk out of a high-security facility with so much classified information on a USB stick.”

Pickles continued: “More Americans now think that security measures have gone too far than think we need more surveillance. If we are to have a sensible debate about what is necessary and proportionate to keep us safe in the modern communications age, we need to start by stopping the utterly ridiculous pastime of some securocrats to brand anyone who disagrees with them a terrorist.”

Hayden’s comments will most likely strain the already sensitive relationship between hackers and the US government.

Surveillance agencies employ hackers to assist in cybersecurity. The Obama administration has supported the creation of specialized cybersecurity talent through recruiting endeavors.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has researchers on-hand to develop graphical user interface (GUI) for cyber ware which will allow civilians to deploy a cyber-defense plan just as governmental agencies do. This mission is called Plan X .

Giving the general public a glimpse into a possible future, the app lays out a mission for the user which includes an entire defense team at the ready.

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