Says journalist is “co-conspirator” in constitution-trampling rant

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
July 22, 2013

Former head of the NSA and the CIA, General Michael Hayden, has said he believes that Edward Snowden is worse than any American “traitor” ever, including Benedict Arnold, for blowing the whistle on government spying.

In an op ed piece for CNN, Hayden, who many would agree has a deranged view of the Fourth Amendment, compares Snowden to a host of other Americans who notoriously released secrets, then he makes the argument that he is worse than every one of them because he released more information.

“I know that we have had our share of spies… We have also had our share of leakers…” Hayden writes.

“Benedict Arnold was bent on betraying the garrison at West Point to the British during the Revolution. Klaus Fuchs and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg ferreted out nuclear secrets for the Russians. Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen identified American penetrations for ultimate execution by the Soviets.”

“But Snowden is in a class by himself.” Hayden asserts.

Hayden is arguing that Snowden is a traitor on a grander scale than the American who provided intelligence and defected to the British during the Revolutionary War, as well as the Americans who supplied Russia with nuclear secrets during the Cold War.

In Hayden’s warped mind, an American who exposed how the government is actively spying on it’s own citizens in secret is a worse traitor than an American who joined a foreign army to fight against the independence of the nation.

Hayden completely ignores the fact that Snowden has assured the media that foreign governments could not possibly access the data he has. The General states that he “would lose all respect for China’s Ministry of State Security and Russia’s FSB if they have not already fully harvested Snowden’s digital data trove.”

Hayden continues the assault on Snowden by stating that he will be to blame for “the undeniable economic punishment that will be inflicted on American businesses for simply complying with American law.” In other words, when corporations and businesses are more wary of working with companies like Facebook and Google, because of the demands placed on them to hand over information to the NSA, that is Snowden’s fault – not the NSA’s.

Moving on from trampling all over the Fourth Amendment, Hayden also suggests that the First should be scrapped, by advocating that Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Snowden story, should be treated as a “co-conspirator”.

“The Guardian newspaper’s Glenn Greenwald, far more deserving of the Justice Department’s characterization of a co-conspirator than Fox’s James Rosen ever was…” Hayden writes.

Greenwald hit back at Hayden immediately with the following tweet:

I've long thought Michael Hayden belongs in prison for implementing illegal warrantless eavesdropping at Americans https://t.co/f3Haz3du1n

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 19, 2013

Greenwald is bang on the money. It was Hayden who was overseeing warrantless wiretapping programs during his tenure at the NSA. Hayden, was the one in charge of spying on millions of Americans’ communications, relying on a truly twisted version of the law under the PATRIOT Act as cover for his actions.

Hayden was the man who seriously argued that there was no mention of “probable cause” in the Fourth Amendment, insisting that only ‘reasonable search and seizure’ was required in violating the privacy of Americans.

Hayden was also the man who suggested that the president should have internet “kill switch” powers in the case of a national emergency – yet more First Amendment trashing nonsense.

Hayden, who currently resides on the board of the spook infested Chertoff Group, has also advocated a “digital Blackwater” to deal with so-called cyber threats.

In other words, he wants to see private “security” companies, such as Chertoff, reap fat profits from trampling all over internet freedom and reporting directly back to the federal government.

If ever there was a traitor to America worse than Benedict Arnold, it seems that Hayden himself is a strong contender.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.

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