Thursday, February 25, 2016

Ex-NSA chief Michael Hayden backs Apple on iPhone ‘back doors’

Retired four-star general Michael Hayden, who as director of the NSA installed and still defends the controversial surveillance program to collect telephone metadata on millions of Americans, says he opposes proposals to force Apple and other tech companies to install "back doors" in digital devices to help law enforcement.
Apple CEO Tim Cook
In an emerging court battle over access to information on the iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino attackers, Hayden says "the burden of proof is on Apple" to show that limited cooperation with investigators would open the door to broader privacy invasions. Apple is being asked not to decrypt information on the smartphone but rather to override the operating system so investigators could try an endless series of passwords to unlock it.
Retired four-star general Michael Hayden
"In this specific case, I'm trending toward the government, but I've got to tell you in general I oppose the government's effort, personified by FBI Director Jim Comey," Hayden told Capital Download in an interview about his memoir, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror. "Jim would like a back door available to American law enforcement in all devices globally. And, frankly, I think on balance that actually harms American safety and security, even though it might make Jim's job a bit easier in some specific circumstances."
[...]
Hayden, 70, brings unparalleled credentials to the roiling debate. The retired Air Force general is the only person ever to head both the super-secret National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. In his 448-page memoir, published Tuesday by Penguin Press, he recalls being at the NSA on Sept. 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He led the CIA during firestorms over its detention and interrogation of terror suspects, and while targeted killings by drones grew. ...
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