Former NSA Chief: Cyberattacks Possible if Snowden Is Arrested

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By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2013-08-07 15:19:09 -0400

The former director of the National Security Agency, Michael Hayden, warned yesterday that if the United States apprehends Edward Snowden, hackers could respond with cyberattacks and even cyberterror. And, by hackers he means, "nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, 20-somethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years."

Hayden issued his warning on Tuesday during a speech on cybersecurity at Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washinton, D.C., think tank, as reported by The Guardian .

See also: NSA Director Defends Surveillance Programs

"If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?" asked Hayden, who also said he was being provocative and "illustrative," not "predictive."

"They may want to come after the U.S. government, but frankly, you know, the dot-mil [military networks] stuff is about the hardest target in the United States," he said. "So, if they can't create great harm to dot-mil, who are they going after? Who for them are the World Trade Centers? The World Trade Centers, as they were for Al-Qaeda."

Hayden, who lead the NSA from 1999 until 2005, and the CIA from 2006 until 2009, said he was worried about those he called "hackers" because they're starting to acquire the capacity to do harm in cyberspace — "the capacities that we now associate with nation states.”

In an interview with CNN last week, Hayden addressed the latest Guardian report based on documents leaked by Snowden.

During the interview, he said XKeyscore (the NSA's "widest-reaching" system for gathering Internet intelligence) is "really quite an achievement," adding it's "a tool that's been developed over the years, and lord knows we were trying to develop similar tools when I was at the National Security Agency."

Image: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Topics: cyberattack, edward snowden, NSA, U.S., US & World, World