Quotes by Michael Hayden

Theres this movie, Zero Dark Thirty about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Some have complained that too many secrets were dished out by the intelligence and special operations communities to director Kathryn Bigelow, screenwriter Mark Boal and their crew, part of a broader pattern of using intelligence for political effect.

There is no part of the executive branch that more exists on the outer edge of executive prerogative than the American intelligence community - the intelligence community, CIA, covert action. My literal responsibility as director of CIA with regard to covert action was to inform the Congress - not to seek their approval, to inform.

American political elites feel very empowered to criticize the American intelligence community for not doing enough when they feel in danger, and as soon as weve made them feel safe again, they feel equally empowered to complain that were doing too much.

I believe we do have a great intelligence service. Is it good enough in all circumstances? Of course not. We live in the human condition. We try to make it better each day.

I have spent my adult life working in American intelligence. It has been quite an honor. Generally well resourced. A global mission. No want of issues. And it was a hell of a ride.

The FISA Amendment Act of 2008 actually allows some of the things we were doing under the presidents authority only against al Qaeda, it allows them for all legitimate foreign intelligence purposes.

Renditions before and since 9/11 share some basic features. They have been conducted lawfully, responsibly and with a clear and single purpose: Get terrorists off the street and gain intelligence on those still at large. Our detention and interrogation programs flow from the same inescapable logic.

President Obama and his successors are dependent on the 100,000-plus people inside the American intelligence community - the people Edward Snowden betrayed.

Americans are very practical folks. Accustomed to hard choices in their own lives, they are willing to give us in intelligence a lot of slack as we make the hard choices our profession demands.

Politicization - the shading of analysis to fit prevailing policy or politics - is the harshest criticism one can make of an intelligence organization. It strikes beyond questions of competence to the fundamental ethic of the enterprise, which is, or should be, truth telling.

Dissenting analysts passionate about their positions are not unusual in the American intelligence community. Their presence - or even the rejection - of their favored positions is not prima face evidence of politicization.

The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran had paused its nuclear weaponization work also reported with high confidence that such work had been going on through 2003. How far did they get? Thats an important question, but I fear that the Iranians will never answer it, and we will not insist that they do.

Intelligence collection is not confined to the communications of adversaries or of the guilty. Rather, its about gaining information otherwise unavailable that would help keep Americans safe and free.

Presidents get to decide how their intelligence is served up to them, and its the job of intelligence to adjust.

When the intelligence is making a policymaker too happy, he ought to challenge it, and even if he doesnt, the intelligence briefer needs to launch a red team against his own conclusions to see if he can hold his ground.

Its good to remind intelligence producers and consumers alike about the need to warn of emerging conditions, trends, threats and opportunities and the potential for discontinuities.

Intelligence is often viewed as a profession that steals secrets and then knits those secrets together for policymakers in order to inform their judgments.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas, and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.

CIA relies on a partners focus, linguistic agility, and cultural depth; in return, the partner benefits from CIAs resources, technology, and global view.

The arc of technology is in the direction of unbreakable encryption, and no laws are going to get in the way of that reality.