9/11 Commission Staffer to NSA: How Can We Help You?

I recently found an interesting 9/11 Commission document about the NSA in the National Archives. The handwritten note from one of the commission’s staffers, Gordon Lederman, shows that one of his acquaintances had lunch with NSA Director Michael Hayden on May 7, 2003. Before the lunch, the acquaintance called Lederman and asked him whether he had any questions he wanted put to Hayden. According to the note, Lederman’s reply was, “I suggested that [the acquaintance] ask what the 9/11 Comm could do in its investigation that would be most useful to DirNSA [Hayden].”

General Hayden on Search and Seizure

Almost three years ago, General Michael Hayden (then Deputy Director for National Intelligence, formerly NSA Director, now CIA Director) had a famous exchange with Jonathan Landay of Knight-Ridder (now McClatchy) about the US constitution’s 4th amendment ensuring that search and seizure requires a warrant (or doesn’t, depending on your point of view).

Michael Hayden Caught in a Lie

Current CIA and former NSA Director Michael Hayden claimed to the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry in prepared remarks on 17 October 2002:

Main Core Can Be A Key to 9/11

Salon recently published an article entitled Exposing Bush’s historic abuse of power about a database known as Main Core. The article was focused on domestic surveillance in the US and connected up with a lot of other threads I have noticed swirling around 9/11. It strikes me that this could be the key to uncovering how the intelligence agencies, in particular the NSA, failed in the run up to 9/11 (and a lot more besides), and I will try and explain here how and why I think Main Core could be linked to the attacks.Given that the article also said that lawmakers are considering the launch of an investigation modelled on the Church Committee into the programme, as well as other aspects of surveillance, this represents a very decent chance of getting to the bottom of what actually happened.The Salon article followed others in the Wall Street Journal and Radar, and, if you haven’t already read them, it would be well worth your while.