Transcript of interview by Benjamin Harris of General (retired) Michael Hayden:
B.H.: Our guest today is "Michael" "Hayden," former head of the CIA and NSA. Welcome to Public Occurrences, General. Can you tell us a little about yourself?
M.H.: My dick is this small.
B.H.: Background, background.
M.H.: I grew up in Pennsylvania...
B.H.: ...You did not.
M.H.: ...Yes, I did.
B.H.: How do you think Penn State is going to do this year?
M.H.: “Keith Alexander has got world-class athletes and they’re not only not on the field, they’re not even on the bench. They haven’t even suited up..."
B.H.: Are they still in the showers with Sandusky?
M.H.: Keith Alexander, the current head of NSA.
B.H.: Ah, sports analogy. Good. Keith Alexander, the current head of the National Security Agency, what now?
M.H.: He's got some good people working for him...
B.H.: ...I see. Good athletes...
M.H.: Some good athletes, the problem is...
B.H.: They're not on the field...
M.H.: "They're not on the field, they haven't even suited up yet..."
B.H.: Right, not even dressed. Why?
M.H.: "Because you and I haven’t figured out what it is we want our government to do or what it is we will let our government do."
B.H.: Damn.
M.H.: "And this whole Snowden thing, raising the specter of a — of an overly aggressive government and government overreach and so on is going to freeze this.”
B.H.: Can't have Keith's athletes getting frozen in the shower! Shrivel that thing right up. General, you mentioned Edward Snowden, what do you make of him and his supporters?
M.H.: "Nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twenty-somethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years."
B.H.: Anarchists! I haven't taken lulzsec personally but I hear it's indicated for nihilism, anarchism...
M.H.: ...Lulz Security, a computer hacking group.
B.H.: I know; little pharmacological joke there. Back to Snowden.
M.H.: “If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?"
B.H.: Yes! yes! that is the question! What should Snowden supporters do? Better put: What do you think these sexless, twenty-something anarchists will do?
M.H.: "Well, they may want to come after the U.S. government..."
B.H.: Eeeck! How? How-how-how-how-how?
M.H.: "Frankly, you know, the dot-mil stuff is about the hardest target in the United States."
B.H.: Yeah, that wouldn't make sense...
M.H.: "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-Qaida? So I guess what I’m suggesting is this is — it’s going to get worse before it gets better."
B.H.: You'd have to get in the minds of these twenty-something nihilistic, sexless, anarchists on lulzsec.
M.H.: "I’m being entirely speculative, not predictive..."
B.H.: That's okay, that's okay. Speculate, speculate, please.
M.H.: "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. But certainly, Mr. Snowden has created quite a stir among those folks..."
B.H.: ...Yep...
M.H.: ..."folks who are very committed to transparency and global transparency and the global web, kind of ungoverned and free..."
B.H.: Idiots.
M.H.: "And I don’t know that there’s a logic between trying to punish America or American institutions for his arrest, but I hold open the possibility."
B.H.: Logical or not, I think that's wise. It's a possibility...punish America...Yeah.
M.H.: "Although the Snowden allegations seem to point to the Americans spying on everybody, all right, actually the Americans share intelligence with almost everybody, and to the benefit of both ourselves and our partners."
B.H.: Yeah. Good point. Share...almost everybody...benefit...
M.H.: ..."I can sit here and imagine circumstances and scenarios, but they're nothing more than imaginative."
B.H.: The imaginative General Michael Hayden, ladies and gentlerman! We need your imagination, General. I hope you'll share with us in the future your thoughts on what these Snowden people could do...what they might be up to...to punish America. Thank you for your time.
...
The italicized portions of this imagined interview are direct quotations from Hayden's speech before the "Bipartisan Policy Center/Electric Grid Cyber Security Initiative" yesterday.
B.H.: That's okay, that's okay. Speculate, speculate, please.
M.H.: "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. But certainly, Mr. Snowden has created quite a stir among those folks..."
B.H.: ...Yep...
M.H.: ..."folks who are very committed to transparency and global transparency and the global web, kind of ungoverned and free..."
B.H.: Idiots.
M.H.: "And I don’t know that there’s a logic between trying to punish America or American institutions for his arrest, but I hold open the possibility."
B.H.: Logical or not, I think that's wise. It's a possibility...punish America...Yeah.
M.H.: "Although the Snowden allegations seem to point to the Americans spying on everybody, all right, actually the Americans share intelligence with almost everybody, and to the benefit of both ourselves and our partners."
B.H.: Yeah. Good point. Share...almost everybody...benefit...
M.H.: ..."I can sit here and imagine circumstances and scenarios, but they're nothing more than imaginative."
B.H.: The imaginative General Michael Hayden, ladies and gentlerman! We need your imagination, General. I hope you'll share with us in the future your thoughts on what these Snowden people could do...what they might be up to...to punish America. Thank you for your time.
...
The italicized portions of this imagined interview are direct quotations from Hayden's speech before the "Bipartisan Policy Center/Electric Grid Cyber Security Initiative" yesterday.
