Michael Hayden Quotes

Michael Hayden

Profession : Public Servant

Birth : March 17, 1945

To be perfectly candid, we're better at stealing other people's secrets than anyone else in the world. But we self-limit. We steal secrets to keep our citizens free and safe.

Michael Hayden

Xi agreed to the American definition of legitimate espionage. In other words, you don't use the power of the state to steal secrets for profit.

Michael Hayden

All enterprises and major players need to pay attention to the needs of the government of the country of which they are a part. At one level, it would be unconscionable for a company like Huawei not to be responsive to Chinese national-security needs.

Michael Hayden

Apple and Google want to create encryption for which they could not provide you the key. Their business model will not survive if the American government has a special relationship with them that requires them to surrender this kind of information.

Michael Hayden

I think the Sino-American relationship is the most important geo-strategic question facing us.

Michael Hayden

Most of the 9/11 hijackers weren't married, none of them had families inside the United States, and there's no evidence that any family members moved before, during, or after 9/11.

Michael Hayden

National security looks different from the Oval Office than it does from a hotel room in Iowa.

Michael Hayden

There's a bigger difference between the first and second Bush administrations than there is between Bush and Obama. That's really true.

Michael Hayden

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.

Michael Hayden

There is no worse place for an intelligence service like CIA to be than on Page 1, above the fold in your daily newspaper.

Michael Hayden

After the attacks on September 11th, we all learned lessons.

Michael Hayden

NSA is a very conservative culture legally. Our lawyers at NSA were notorious for their conservatism up through the morning of September 11th, 2001. The single most consistent criticism of the NSA legal office by our congressional oversight committee was that our legal office was too conservative.

Michael Hayden

Before he played CIA Director Saul Berenson on 'Homeland,' a much younger Mandy Patinkin gained some fame as Inigo Montoya, a legendary swordsman, in 'The Princess Bride.'

Michael Hayden

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.

Michael Hayden

If we are going to conduct espionage in the future, we are going to have to make some changes in the relationship between the intelligence community and the public it serves.

Michael Hayden

Nothing more threatens Vladimir Putin than not being able to track his own citizens.

Michael Hayden

I don't know if the European Union contributes a great deal to espionage. At the union level, they talk about commerce and privacy. But to keep citizens safe, that remains a responsibility back in national capitals.

Michael Hayden

There is an unarguable downside to unbreakable encryption.

Michael Hayden

As director of CIA, I was responsible for everything done in the agency's name, and it didn't matter whether that was done by an agency employee, a government contractor, a liaison service on our behalf, or a source on our behalf.

Michael Hayden

The Constitution defends all of us against unreasonable search and seizure. What constitutes reasonableness depends upon threat.

Michael Hayden