"The world is not getting any safer and espionage remains our first line of defense."
"Critics, observers, and just average citizens don't know as much about intelligence as they want or should. A goal of this book is to help address that. These pages are my best efforts to show the American people what their intelligence services actually do on their behalf and the republic it serves.
This book is about the last ten years of my government service, the decade I spent at the national level as director of the National Security Agency DIRNSA (1999-2009).
The narrative reflects the always important, but sometimes delicate, relationship between intelligence and the policy makers that it serves. There's a healthy dose also of the even more delicate relationship with congressional oversight.
- The spooky stuff is about terrorism
Had I known what awaited me - and America - a year and a half down the road, I might have been ever bolder. But the broader lesson struck. Caution isn't always a virtue. Not if you're serious about doing your duty.
I said at the end of my grim presentation. 1/24/2000 all data froze, we couldn't move it, nobody could access it. Nobody could analyze it. NSA was brain dead. As keepers of the nation's secrets, we now had another one to keep - a secret Saddam Hussein or Osama bin laden or any other enemy could have used to great advantage.
If word of this gets out, we significantly increase the likelihood that Americans get hurt. Those who intend our nation and our citizens harm will be emboldened. The computer crash was the perfect metaphor for an agency desperately in need of change.
Good language analysts are a rare and special breed, since they have to be masters of so many skills.
First and foremost, they need to know the language and the culture. They have to be target smart: who is related to whom? What is the overall context? What code words do they use? Who lies to whom on the phone? Intercepts don't come to you on a platter. You have to be a hunter far more than a gatherer.
In ways not widely understood - taking a communication not in your language, between two individuals not of your culture and perhaps not quite able to distinguish the world as it is from the world as they would like it to be (common in messianic groups like al-qaeda) taking all of that and turning it into something actionable is a high art and science.
So language skills really mattered. I upped the required standard for our military linguists. In an earlier world, where we were intercepting heavily formatted military messages, basic fluency would suffice. A ground controller directing a fighter to turn left or turn right or to ascend to a certain altitude was pretty easy to follow.
- We are the keepers of the nation's secrets,
I said at the end of my grim presentation. 1/24/2000 all data froze, we couldn't move it, nobody could access it. Nobody could analyze it. NSA was brain dead. As keepers of the nation's secrets, we now had another one to keep - a secret Saddam Hussein or Osama bin laden or any other enemy could have used to great advantage.
If word of this gets out, we significantly increase the likelihood that Americans get hurt. Those who intend our nation and our citizens harm will be emboldened. The computer crash was the perfect metaphor for an agency desperately in need of change.
- NSA was in desperate need of reinvention
Heir to American's World War II code breaking heroics, NSA was created in secret by Harry Truman in 1952. Many consider signals intelligence even more valuable than human intelligence or satellite imagery, because the quantity and quality of the potential take is so much greater.
- The blackout episode helped me better understand what was ahead of me.
I had been cautious.
Now it was clear to me that no course of action I could set out on would be as dangerous to the agency as standing still. Had I known what awaited me - and America - a year and a half down the road, I might have been ever bolder. But the broader lesson struck.
- Caution isn't always a virtue. Not if you're serious about doing your duty
Good language analysts are a rare and special breed, since they have to be masters of so many skills.
First and foremost, they need to know the language and the culture. They have to be target smart: who is related to whom? What is the overall context? What code words do they use? Who lies to whom on the phone? Intercepts don't come to you on a platter. You have to be a hunter far more than a gatherer.
In ways not widely understood - taking a communication not in your language, between two individuals not of your culture and perhaps not quite able to distinguish the world as it is from the world as they would like it to be (common in messianic groups like al-qaeda) taking all of that and turning it into something actionable is a high art and science.
So language skills really mattered. I upped the required standard for our military linguists. In an earlier world, where we were intercepting heavily formatted military messages, basic fluency would suffice. A ground controller directing a fighter to turn left or turn right or to ascend to a certain altitude was pretty easy to follow.
- Al-qaeda didn't talk that way. They were elliptical, metaphorical,
indirect, nuanced . . . and clever.
So I reminded them of our duties as professionals, that if the republic authorized war, we would fight it savagely, limited only by the laws of armed conflict. I added we could all agree that it would be a bad thing indeed if the countries around the world got the idea that it was OK to be an enemy of the United States of America.
Since its founding (NSA) by President Truman in 1952 it had been tasked broadly speaking with intercepting communications that contain information that would help keep Americans free and safe and advance our country's vital national security interests. . . ."
~ The above are words taken from the book Playing to the Edge, by Michael Hayden
~ Buy the book @: Amazon or check it out at your local library
~ The above are words taken from the book Playing to the Edge, by Michael Hayden
~ Buy the book @: Amazon or check it out at your local library
