Surveillance tables turned on former NSA chief
WASHINGTON — Former National Security Agency chief Michael V. Hayden learned a lesson about eavesdropping aboard an Amtrak train to Newark: Don’t talk on the phone where people can hear you.
Hayden, who also once headed the CIA, began talking on his cellphone Thursday after boarding Acela No. 2170, The Washington Post reported.
A few seats away, passenger Tom Matzzie heard him mention U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2008 BlackBerry, which was modified to block foreign eavesdropping.
Once Matzzie was able to place Hayden, he took to Twitter. “Former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden on Acela behind me blabbing ‘on background as a former senior admin official,’?” he tweeted. “Sounds defensive.”
Matzzie, a former Washington director of the political organization MoveOn.org, kept up the tweets for another 15 minutes as Hayden talked. Hayden used the name “Massimo,” leading Matzzie to conclude he was speaking with Time’s national security reporter Massimo Calabresi.
“Michael Hayden on Acela giving reporters disparaging quotes about admin,” Matzzie tweeted.
Someone eventually tipped off Hayden, who finished a call, stood up and walked over to Matzzie.
“Would you like a real interview?” Hayden asked.
“I’m not a reporter,” Matzzie replied.
“Everybody’s a reporter,” Hayden said.
The Post said the two then talked about the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and NSA surveillance.
Hayden told the Post later he wasn’t disparaging Obama or his administration. Matzzie “got it terribly wrong,” Hayden said, dismissing the tweets as an inaccurate “story from a liberal activist sitting two seats from me on the train hearing intermittent snatches of conversation.”