The former chief of NSA and CIA Michael Hayden has pointed out that a hacking attack might be launched against the USA in response to any future prosecution that might be carried out against Edward Snowden and he said that the hack might be from some activist like Anonymous.
The former general of air force in his briefing to Washington Group on Tuesday questioned that when the government catches Snowden and brings him to trial, what will be the response of the hackers’ groups?
He made a speculation that ”the hackers would only retaliate against the US government but he also said that they will find it very tough to get through dot-mils which are the network of military files. He said that .mil domain is well secured and it is hard to penetrate their network”.
The general was basically referring to the group of hackers and activists supporting Snowden such as nihilists, Lulzsec , Anonymous, activists under the age of ”twenty something” who might not have any interaction with opposite sex in the last 5 to 6 years.
Hayden did not gave an collaborative briefing to his suggestion, when questioned what does he expect from terrorists?, he said ”he is only being speculative and not predictive”.
“I’m just trying to illustrate that you’ve got a group of people out there who make demands, whose demands may not be satisfiable [sic], may not be rational, from other points of view, may not be the kinds of things that government can accommodate,” Hayden said.
Hayden was the head of NSA from 1999 to 2005, before taking over CIA as its head. He was heading NSA when the agency launched massive surveillance operations with the aim of collecting any foreign/local intelligence. They started surveilling internet communications and the domestic phone conversations.
The man behind exposing the NSA’s unethical work was Edward Snowden who was a contractor at NSA, now resident in Russia. Moscow has granted Snowden with a temporary asylum.
