ENEMY OF THE STATE PART TWO: IT’S NOT US, IT’S THEM

Snowden has others who “believe” – perhaps more legitimately – similar to Snowden. Of course, as with any controversy at the forefront of modern day America, there is also opposition. One of these such men who has something to say against not only Snowden’s alleged ideologies but also all accusers of the NSA is General Michael Hayden, a former Air Force General and the former head of both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. In a recent debate that took place between NSA supporters and NSA opponents, Hayden made a few key points justifying the actions of the NSA that Snowden and his chosen journalists had revealed. For one, Hayden said that the United States is not the only country who spies on its own citizens as well as the citizens of foreign countries and that the only reason that this – which he thinks should be thought of as the norm – has been deemed controversial and questionable by the American public is because of the media. He pins the great stink in America recently that reeks of privacy violations on journalists who try to frame it as a large issue while it is not in the least. He continues to assign blame to the journalists as being the root of the problem, accusing them – the Washington Post in particular – of exaggerating the NSA’s activities and framing them as something they are not. According to Hayden, contrary to what journalists allege, the NSA does not regularly sift through everyone’s private emails, but rather that they only do so when someone gives them reason to do so. On that note, Hayden also said that this method of collecting all emails is much easier than collecting individual emails – these emails, he claims, are read primarily so as to avoid the terrorist threat. He closes his argument, saying that that fateful day back in September of 2001, 9/11 proved that the enemy exists and is could be here, in the United States, at any moment. Thus, the NSA has a responsibility to protect American citizens. These claims seem to focus on calling out journalists as the cause of the problem in the United States as of late while the NSA was acting justly in an attempt to protect their citizens from the evil – namely, the terrorist threat – that is constantly afoot.