now to build sustainable struggles and that's hard work, to back. so that's what i've got. thank you all so much for having us. your life work and living have to be a struggle. [applause] >> next month, march the third the subject is women in the black panther party. so come out to that one. >> somebody said the sold-out? [inaudible] [laughter] then the church and the struggle is going to be april 7. and i looking at the right thing? [inaudible]

and a fifth is education on jefferson organizing so keep coming and we will solve each problem step by step. [laughter] books will be -- the authors will be signing the books in the lobby. >> now on booktv "after words" the former cia and nsa director provides an inside look at national security. he's interviewed by james woolsey the former fbi director and the clinton administration. >> host: general hayden, first of all, very fine book, enjoyed it a lot. going to start right off with a couple of interesting chapters in the middle. one about pittsburgh and your history of growing up there in the same neighborhood for many years and the other about your family and what it's like to

have family and in the fbi. i thought you might want to see just a word about those before we jump into things like metadata and the rest. >> first of all, thank you. i didn't have a chapter on me in the book. i kind of have the manuscript with penguin, the publishers and said what about you. so i put one together. they suggest i put it near the end, it's not a dark and stormy night or anything. it's tied to the speech i gave at the university in 2007 after i was director and cia to the graduating class which is my alma mater. i used to pick it off of my experience and how i brought that with me to the cia. i mentioned in the book i was in the air force before i was in a classroom that didn't have a crucifix in it.

wonderful, broad, culturally based, historically based education which was kind of values based from the school to the catholic high school to ten university and of course university and of course from my parents and it was in pittsburgh which you know as well as i kind of a blue-collar town even though it has a white collar economy it still has a blue-collar culture. i quote an article by the famous world war ii correspondent before he was somebody and before the war he was traveling to the united states had visited pittsburgh, wrote an article that is pinned to a bulletin board on one of those just across from downtown pittsburgh and he characterizes the city masterfully, 1939, 1940 this place just goes to work. that's what brought me, that's

what i brought to the job at the cia. >> host: i want to link to a subject you deal with more than once in which is dominated in many aspects of the debate on intelligence in recent years and that is metadata. it used to be the case back when people just wrote letters in longhand and put stamps on them there was something that would let the government told the post office if you see anything coming to woolsey were coming from, we want to keep track of the address and the return address and the post script and the date. and then presumably if they saw him getting a lot of mail from a mafia figure they would take

further steps. it strikes me that both you deal with early in the book it's something you don't with right at the beginning of your time at the nsa and with respect to edward there've been a lot of misunderstandings of people thinking that when you were keeping track of the outside of the envelope with it as a letter or an e-mail they are also reading the message and people got very scared and worried about that. can you help clear up what's going on? >> guest: there is so much to be said about that and you're right to public got stampeded into the pockets corner of the room after the story came out. there was a lot about that on the press. frankly we should embrace a lot of that responsibility ourselves.

we probably could have been more forthcoming and we should have been far more agile telling our story and explaining what it is we were doing but to look at the elements as you described, the metadata is the outset outside of the envelope for electronic communication and as you said, american law enforcement traditionally has been able to look at the outside of the envelope. the court decided that the fact of the phone call, who you called and when and for how long also was essentially the outside of the envelope. a very fundamental case smith versus maryland the court held five to court held five toko free just like the outside of the envelope that there was no expectation of privacy and therefore it wasn't constitutionally protected. so, when we gathered all of that data after the federal program to be fair, congress then

limited access to the metadata in the foreign intelligence surveillance act but it wasn't constitutionally limited, it was limited by statute. after 9/11, the president using his article to commander-in-chief authorities decided that to the degree of the statute stopped the commander-in-chief from doing that, the statute had to be unconstitutional because it was limiting his inherent article and by the way that stood up in court on two locations. the court said we take it as a given they have that constitutional the constitutional authority. so we gathered the data. how constitutionally he could have gone along with it but out of respect for american privacy, we didn't. we gathered at the data and we put it into for the want of a better term in lockbox where it was just riding along there and

we didn't try to create relationships or run algorithms against it for anything which is common practice in business. all we did is when we got knowledge of what he called a dirty number, we've never seen this before but this one is really worrisome, i wonder if that the phone has ever called the united states. we get to go and say anybody who talked to this phone in yemen and they raise their hand and say well, once a week we then get to say who did you talk to and jim, i have now completed my explanation of the program under the federal land. that's all we did. now there's kind of a nervousness out there among the far left of the political spectrum. i don't know if if they've used

it or not i just don't want the government having the ability to abuse it. >> host: no good deed goes unpunished and had you pushed your authorities to the ultimate legal possibility it might have gotten less of an angry reaction >> i am on a panel at aspen. keith alexander is with me and eric schmidt from google. we are talking about this and he says what he doesn't understand how powerful it is you can run algorithms against it and relationships and it goes on and on. he says that's all true but we don't do that. all we get to to say that any of do this they did any of the numbers call that one sex >> host: no one believes me when i said in the middle that google and amazon particularly together a long with some other companies like this now a lot more about you and what you buy

and what sites you visit and so forth. >> guest: than co. than the public discussion got worse. i would say consistently even after someone may try to explain this have tried to explain this to them they would say consistently if they really get interested in who's calling that number they can simply get the content of the call and my explanation is that as a violation of the law in the united states and of the physics. you can't do that. it's not possible. >> host: let me turn you to another subject of waterboarding i've been in many discussions about this and i'm curious to your be used and you make them cleaner but not precisely clear in the buck.

navy seals and special forces, many of them, perhaps most are waterboarding as a part of their training. >> guest: when i came to the cia my deputy was a former navy seal. >> host: there's that and also the case that some journalists and authors back during the peak interest in this couple years ago had themselves water board of board of the city could write better articles for magazines and so forth. now, to test for torture isn't simple and clear but i don't know any other things called torture by anybody such as putting bamboo shoots under one's fingernails that is done by journalists to see what it's like or that is done as part of our navy seals training. there's got to be something a bit different about waterboarding which might put it in the same category as for some

purposes that you put i think sleep deprivation into which was in some difficult circumstances of the potential payoff of saving lives you could limit someone's ability to sleep if they break were a terrorist suspect, prisoner, whatever. do you think of it in the same way or no? >> guest: but may get into that in some of the specifics. i treat this not up because i went to self justify it but to try to create a historical record i think that is the best of my ability in the book and/or write, i do make the distinction that there are some things everyone agrees are always wrong and you can't do under any circumstance and then you have some things over here no one has any gasp about then you have

this body of steps in the middle that to be perfectly candid, it's on the the edge. whether it is ethical, moral, appropriate coming to need to understand the totality of circumstances in which you find yourselves and even once you've digested the circumstances they could really differ so i didn't use waterboarding. i was part of the administration when we took waterboarding off the table that's but that's because i have different circumstances. i removed it but that was no judgment of what had gone on before and let me finish with this when people ask what would you have done my answer is and i

repeat this by answer is thank god i never had to make that decision and for those that are quick to concise, they may want tocome it to backup someone stepped up and made a tough call. >> host: does with some of the aspects are about. this could be asked about colleague shaikh mohammed because there was a dispute and still ongoing i suppose about whether or not being the only person who was water boarded a substantial number of times, whether or not it's it produced information from him that did in fact help lead us to osama bin laden. >> guest: it would be nice to have this golden thread.

[inaudible] [laughter] >> hundreds or thousands are ine fabric that get you where you want to be. so, a couple of data points. it was sleep deprivation. we did use waterboarding but at the end of the day it was one or the other technique. now having said that, there was a difference in before and after the enhanced interrogation technique. this was totally defy and andy didn't turn into a boy scout or democratic petri but he was more cooperative over here and in fact he gave large volumes of information including information that helped us.

now can i do this and that, it doesn't work that way but let me give you a way that i explain it again in the buck and from the bottom of my heart. i cannot imagine any operation like would have been taking place that did not rely on that shoppers warehouse of information we got from those 100 plus detainees. it was like he encyclopedia al qaeda is. >> host: and now with the ease of once you find them which you point out is very hard to find them to be able to tell fill them with hellfire from a drone among the border, that is a

something that is still doable technologically for us now in ways that it hasn't really ever been before and as a result, we have killed a lot of people that if we captured them we might get a good deal of information from them that we can't get information from them if we can sometimes use enhanced interrogation methods or at least something that isn't over the border but on the tough side of the spectrum that you described. i've characterized this in the past as treating trigger rests like a trout and certain strains. you catch and hold for a while, can't get any information they release them. it seems an odd use of time. >> we haven't done quite the catch and release but we have made it so difficult and

politically dangerous to capture and hold someone that they seem like we just default to the option. if we had our successor john in here he would deny. no, no, we are still in the capturing business if we have a chance and so on. and he's probably speaking his heart. but if you just look at the numbers, since january of 2009 i probably have more fingers appeared and more people we've captured and held for american interrogation. >> host: do you think that is because of the criminal law and criminal justice of what we are supposed to do with respect to terrorists or ignoring the fact we are at war with the terrorist movements? >> guest: that's one of the things i try to emphasize because in the public debate is

paid for this option if you are not treating them as he you would in the criminal justice system than you were acting in a lawless way. we have multiple legal structures under which we cannot read. you've got the criminal justice system but also the wall of the armed conflict and you have to president saying we are at war with these people and therefore if that gives us more potency, we can operate in any particular operation under the law of armed conflict not of criminal justice. >> host: one more, weapons of mass distraction, i'm particularly curious about why we got into the habit of talking

about weapons of mass distraction instead of talking about each weapon independently because one produces biological weapons in a very different way. you could have huge volumes that are in the backseat of a volkswagen, chemical weapons are manufactured differently than the nuclear weapon and people get confused talking about wmd, but the government has never tried to make it clear why. >> guest: one of the things i try to address is despite your information and find find we just leave this alone we are the secret security service here looking out for your welfare first didn't really work and it really doesn't work in today's society where there is a high demand for transparency. so if they continue to do what we did than the cost of doing business is more transparent.

that is intending to the changing political culture. there is no benefit to that because you are telling the american people precisely why you're concerned about it and you're exactly right. let me parse out how we looked at wmd with regards to terrorism. we always said nuclear dispersal of a nuclear detonation command i've just given them to you in the order of probability. so wmd, okay well you know as well as i do we parse to doubt much more tightly inside the business. the american people are pretty smart. they could get that explanation. >> host: the first time that i had seen it it was very important if one was enriching

uranium up to a level of 20%, which is what you need for some medical uses, you've done about 90% of the work that's necessary it's not a straight curve and i think that there is a lot of misunderstanding about that, people being relatively relaxed about iran having let's say some 20% enriched at one time or another about this going back over the years. but that's another subject that has never really been clearly explained effectively to the public and the journalists or if it has, people don't pick it up. >> guest: i try to bare my soul about the question. i am uncomfortable with the plan of action in the nuclear deal but i have a chapter on the

lines of i don't think that we would block this deal. it's not like the had a better idea either so this has been a problem. >> host: do better idea would be to keep the sanctions on. [laughter] >> guest: i'm trying to suggest that this is very difficult for us to deal with. and this progress and thing one reason i'm uncomfortable in the i am uncomfortable in the deal is that if it works, if it does everything we wanted to do and no one cheats, of course the cheat, that's what they do that will but will be cheated in the way that matters, maybe not. if they wait ten years, there will be an industrial-strength nuclear power were never more never more then a few weeks away from enough fissile material.

>> host: let me ask a set of questions people always ask me and i imagine they ask you, which are your favorite spy novels, spy movies, whether or not any of them have anything to do with reality and if there is something that has to do with reality and i will offer an example that is in the espionage world it's often hard to find that there but there was a film several years ago called the lives of others about germany in the 1980s. as far as i'm concerned it is as good as movies get that's distinct from battle scenes and so forth.

>> guest: one of the reasons i wrote was to pull the veil back and let people see into the nature of their own security services. i mentioned something about being around the world talking to officers. ever met jack bauer? [laughter] so, although there's truth in fiction as you know, i wanted to show a little bit of reality. taking that and moving into the realm of fiction, number one, the best written piece i think is david ignatius first article age of innocence. it was actually reviewed on the website which was unusual and i still remember one of the lines. the innocence of the novel but

it's not fiction. it was based on names. >> host: and no relationship to the other code that was side was the furthest thing possible. but he was a remarkable officer and a station chief and david i think them slightly and when he was killed when the embassy was blown up, this isn't exactly a biography but it's close and i completely agree it really has given you a feel for what it's like to be an officer. >> guest: i teach at george mason and i can't talk much about covert action. i signed up about the book. that's the pros. in a more visual medium i will bring up two of them, one is homeland and it is my short summary of homeland. everything before that is wrong.

there's a salesperson at langley but that's never going to happen. but the background is right. opposition to the focus, mission, it rings true. then let me pull out zero dark: 30. there are many things that are artistically correct that are not factually correct and i actually touch upon this in the book. they say for example that there is a straight line in the movie between enhanced interrogation and getting to the movie like this in real life they were connected to but it wasn't like this. for 20 minutes of the movie an alleged cia interrogation infinitely over the top. that said, we were not nice to a couple dozen people.

so artistically correct but not factually accurate. then you have the heroine. it was a team effort, not an individual effort but again, artistically correct versus factually correct i will tell you the team that got bin laden was a band of sisters comprised of women chasing bin laden before it was cool. >> host: on the interrogation in terms of literature with me ask you this. as you and i know in a lot of other people know of course, the cia grew out of a military organization and as a result of that heritage, it is a full-time employees of the cia who operate particularly overseas are called

cia officers that recruit agents inside al qaeda. fbi agents recruit informants inside al qaeda. why can't hollywood get this right? >> guest: its inside code that i use. if they get it wrong you really don't know what you're talking about. >> host: i had someone come into claim to be a cia officer and he would do that wrong. what about the issue of whether what we do in the intelligence business can be characterized by something very different than what one might say officers,

military, special christmas, they are trained to kill but they don't lose track of their reality and go killing of their comrades and colleagues. it virtually never happens. whereas in the intelligence business, in a way, officers, overseas clandestine officers are taught to lie, cheat and steal for their country. ..

>> >> i take this issue head-on from the '60s.

it you really have to be honest. >> yacht -- the cia does not operate outside of a lot. and with several anecdotes in the moral weight you place on someone is incredibly difficult. for the graduation for police officers. and talking to the graduates. in one people agreed to cooperate you may be the

only face of america these people will lease -- ever see. don't forget your moral responsibility. pharao always operating on the edge of the low probability shots. the recant stand dishonesty. >> you vividly said it was 80 percent on your focus at one point. >> in terms of proliferation >> he said how much focus is in iran?

and i am describing this and i turned to say 80 percent mr. president-elect. >> host: there is that and the of for relation of the three things i you focus on with counterterrorism. people ask me what your priorities? it is like a of a but super go to terrorism. counter proliferation rest of though world. it is not a happy description. the weekend in a distant third because we're so demanding. >> host: it iran is the

number one sponsored terrorist states in the world. and from their point of view , it is important for people to a understand what happened with respect to the issue of whether iran was or was not in the process of reacting to iraq or in the process to build up itself to dominate that part of the world? said job was worried about

iran one new report that the interrogation of him to be the if -- effective interrogation to have an early period of time of weapons of mass destruction. in to convince the world that we did have them. that had reverberations. >> there is so much to look at. one of the things that i stressed the second most discussed topic in the oval office. we talked about other stuff for any action. and president bush used to

ask me to question is for or how much uranium? damages year enriched? -- how much is enriched? and, indeed make decisions? i knew the nuclear questions but it was very opaque and very difficult. president bush was a little impatient. i had a good relationship with him and i think he had some regard for wheat and i had a great deal of affection for him. number three is the closest. to go to lessee angeles and tehran every summer. in it is a tough nut to crack.

it really idled ingredients understand the make - - ton in make decisions with the different power structures. >> host: the new york police department. you had a fascinating relationship with them and for most americans to think the cia into a comeback that was not compensated. it is everything overseas

and crime to deal with it. how did the cia get together with the new york police department and why? >> this is part of that legal ambiguity idle me like we don't know what's wrong but we had decided to protect and secure our liberty. with intelligence over here and the attacks of 9/11 read between foreign and domestic. so out of moral responsibility and it is a

cultural. also new york is a special case. this is a truly international city. 1/3. twice as large as the next largest police force in america twice as large as chicago which is larger than a los angeles. end kelly had a very aggressive intelligence and with that n.y.p.d..

and i would never recommend what n.y.p.d. did here for milwaukee we work very hard knowing that it is a special target it 2.0 there 17 attempts while he was there. >> we owe a lot to the people like dave if. i wanna talk about protecting your people. but several members were

particularly upset doesn't matter how many times the people that would have been fired but i couldn't get that message across. and those it did not mount -- manifest themselves. so tell us what happened there. >> thank you for saying that. i thought it was an easy

decision when it was happening but when i look back a think it was an easy decision. but it appears to be controversial. but it suggests that moral pressures to get to the point in the macedonians' picked up some one. and then to look at it for the best of her ability and was interrogated. , and slow to act if like these are not the drones you are looking for.

after a few hours then sent them on his way but the inspector general who made the decision me to talk to this person. but absolutely not. as a director you're responsible for the overall health of the agency and the success of the mission. to create a false positive i will teach every analyst in this agency for if there is

any false positive that they would play back from the analytical judgment and we will have more true positives effect to a false positive bad things could happen otherwise bad things could happen but not to be. how could you possibly do that? i said this will not happen. the was with the best analyst we ever had. [laughter] it was easy for me but there was this urban legend of accountability for mistakes. end is in the book see walking into the concourse

with one of the up predecessors there's several of lady liberty rigo where others cannot go we work were no one else has asked or allowed to work in. is to talk about those global situations. to say on the scale of '03 than how would you rate cia analysis? keep in mind we don't do eight or nine or 10. [laughter] then they're asking the department of commerce. [laughter]

that is when i tried to pull back avail to show what actually happens inside the nsa. real people that are asked to do extraordinary things. >> host: very good. i want to ask you who you worked with really stands out as somebody who will go the extra mile. mine is charlie wilson. of the house appropriations committee. he would move some money around to be on the appropriations subcommittee in the combination of the directors with much of that

executive branch together to have their real flexibility makes it possible for us and i would move 500,000 from one account for hundred 50,000 back to another. but if we had to do that right. that was my example. >> a couple come to mind. that were self-serving to the administration. aicher have a straightforward conversation with steve. i would say i have a decision to make to make the decision but i want you to know that.

in item '05 was even invite -- inviting him to be a sounding board. in he was forever stable. i was invited to "meet the press". god rest his soul. so he called steve. i have been invited to be on meet the press. he said good. good luck. no political guidance just good luck. so he had the confidence in the agency to stabilize things.

and i got selected to be director in the process that i lay out. in the president will want to talk to you. and i have a pretty good understanding. so i walked out to my our office and find steve. it is an unhappy incident. to track down in london. and then to say steve. would you consider to be the deputy director? he said that would really depend on who was the

director. fisa i am not at liberty to discuss that but i am the one making this call. [laughter] he said i will get back to you. about two hours later after he talked to his wife he said okay if you are number one i will be happy to come back and we had a wonderful relationship. >> with the 5:00 meeting you are making decisions. very often i gain in point i would simply say are you all right with that? and then there is another time with the particularly edgy covert action. we're looking for at each

other. directing to boys would never be making a negative decision from pennsylvania? [laughter] >> host: we worked at the same law firm for a time in practice together and reduce settlements together in when we were negotiating guess who got to be the good cop? [laughter] he is a wonderful good copper co but we had something happen when you first went to the agency, it to nsa. it was obviously a bracing experience what concerns about the future and with

that side of the government in particular to you think are salient? >> it doesn't come first chronologically with the timeline but it is the first chapter of the book because it is such a powerful experience. i have been their tenants -- 10 months in dash phone call the system is down. what do you mean? the system is down. the whole system. of we were still collecting data but we could not process relies -- or analyze and that was 72 hours which means america plus not

collecting single intelligence half a week and that is of very big deal. that is short scrimmage line , . it taught me several things. we better get in gear to modernize our i t system. i had been director 10 months and can you inherited a national treasure that was falling behind its than i was cautious do no harm. there is no course of our action epic is set up to be more dangerous standing still. so with that technological lesson here is also the psychic listen to move out and we begin a very

aggressive program. and then be given to a private contractor so it was not constrained by the patterns of the american federal budget to refresh the to get a summer clothes. -- somewhere close. >> host: that vulnerability of the grid generally with the electromagnetic pulse or the gm's it detonated by a nuclear weapon. there are a number of things that could take down the operation of our electronics and power grid. they hit most dramatically at the intelligence service. >> roughly chronological and

i get done. i don't have anything in here with cyber. wait. oh little snippet here or there but no aggregation of the cyberdomain. i started to write and it gushed out of me with the importance of what you are describing in how much it has fundamentally changed american life, the way we fight wars, a collector or protect intelligence, and when i was done, to step back to say this detailed history of the evolution look slow but to get to the tailored access office we

built a structure of the was government to conduct operations in about a decade. that is the speed of light for government. and i really try to lay that out. so talk about moral dilemma dilemma, we can be fairly acute with the cyberdomain i don't think that is quite accurate. and sorry for your better and we're more public and we did get that accusation actually fall back to cyberdomain is a domain like air and space and sea but actually navy is essential

to keep the common areas common. but it is very controversial and i took that ahead on. the last one of the chapter is that i was there for a lot of it not have to live with it. >> host: take just a minute to expand under fascinating characterization of the cia like being fighter pilots the analyst are like the faculty in university in the people who make things operate the support system of in the science and technology people. [laughter]

>> one of the parts of the book and think is called a. [inaudible] share and family life. [laughter] i'd bring all different aspects into it. so you drive down 123 you think cia is a singular noun. but never. on a good day it is collective most days it is plural you have each for it directorates john brennan our successor is there now trying to cut through. >> host: that is a subject for another day. we have to wrap up. >> by different cultures you have to learn to deal with

each. >> i love your final quotation i will close with that it is a nice guy how to operate to say you're the only superpower in the room but don't act like it. >> that's right titans tour agencies. >> thanks a lot >> host: pedigree is the name of th