Inside the NSA: An Evening with General Michael Hayden

After the attacks, at the request of the White House, Hayden intensified and expanded NSA wiretapping operations of various communications between Americans and terrorist suspects abroad in hopes of detecting and preventing another terrorist attack. These initial efforts were executed without a court order and after being revealed by The New York Times, were subsequently placed under judicial review. Over time, the NSA’s efforts grew into the multidimensional programs exposed by Edward Snowden, including the collection and storage of phone and email metadata covering billions of calls and messages between American citizens. In conversation with Amy Zegart, General Hayden provides an insider’s account about the origins and development of the NSA programs. He discusses the directives and mechanisms to control them, and the disagreements within the Bush administration about the extent of the wiretapping. He offers his views on the justification, legal status, scale, and effectiveness of the NSA monitoring.