Official: Air Force general to be named as Goss replacement WASHINGTON (AP) - Only hours after he suddenly resigned, the Bush administration is floating the name of a replacement for CIA Director Porter Goss.Naming Hayden to head the CIA is a bone headed idea but only if you love freedom. Hayden's appointment to this position will tend to militarize the CIA.
A senior official says it's Air Force General Michael Hayden. He's the top deputy to National INtelligence Director John Negroponte and had been considered a contender. The official says there could be an announcement Monday.
Hayden served as National Security Agency director until becoming the nation's Number Two intelligence official one year ago. Since December, he has aggressively defended the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program. Hayden was one of its chief architects.
Secondly, Hayden is not what you would call a bright spark. Bluntly, he's an arrogant dim wit. He's already coughed up varying and contradictory stories about NSA spying on American citizens. As you recall, Bush had said the program only involved "known al Qaeda[s] suspect[s]" making phone calls into the United States from abroad. Well, that turned out to have been yet another Bush lie. The NSA is, in fact, listening in on everyone whether the calls are international or not. Hayden's story, however, differed even from Bush's lie. The General said that one of the ends of an surveilled call must be international but left open the question of whether the supposed Al Qaeda suspect had to be foreign or domestic.
Bush admits that wiretapping occurred without warrants ""a clear violation of the 14th Amendment which requires warrants issued only "...upon probable cause". Hayden maintained, however, that the standard was "reasonableness" ""not probable cause. That's pure bunk, of course, but Hayden continued to argue about it even when the Fourth Amendment had been quoted to him:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.That's plain enough! Why would Hayden ""clearly wrong ""continue to argue about it? Given the contradictory and false statements made by Bush and Hayden on this topic, it is hard not to conclude that Bush has been spying on Americans all along and, as always, trying to justify the crime after the fact.
In fact, operation Able Danger is convincing evidence that if Bush had really wanted to protect Americans, he could have. Able Danger, moreover, was legal. If terrorists could be caught without violating the Constitution, then what is Bush's excuse for doing precisely that? What other, nefarious reason has Bush to spy on Americans, subvert the Constitution, abrogate "due process of law"?
Why, after all was, Able Danger shut down? Was it to avoid revealing to Americans that terrorists could have been caught ""but weren't?
