OK, roll out the tinfoil -- make a hat -- here comes a new ungrounded fear...
As I see it, the real problem with Hayden's confirmation is that he has an unbridled confidence in technology. Think of it. We are being told that we should not worry about the government tracing all our telephone calls because only THE COMPUTER KNOWS who is calling whom. ONLY WHEN THE COMPUTER spits out a number do actual people spring into action.
The computer? The computer? Which computer? Only the NSA computer - the largest computational facility in the world. A computer that has the largest core, the largest storage capacity and that is outfitted with machine learning capabilities unprecedented in history.
More maniacal musings below the fold...
There are three main computational facilities in government. The largest non-defense related computer is located deep within the Oak Ridge compound in Tennessee. It is truly amazing - a complex spread out over about 20,000 square feet (maybe more) with Cray supercomputers spaced about a meter apart - all in a timesharing network. But there are two bigger facilities...
The computational facility at Livermore is said to be bigger. It is given over almost completely to weapons development. The biggest, though is at NSA.
It is tied directly into the overseas trunk lines and is tapped into every email node in the country. It draws information from all the major telephone exchanges and has the capability of tracking not only email but also smail from the point of cancellation to the point of delivery. It can trace all credit card charges and relate all that information back to an individual. It can trace your location by triangulating cell phone calls and can tell where you have been whenever you make a credit card purchase to buy bread or gas.
All of this information is fed into machine learning algorithms that attempt to correlate patterns of behavior with undesired activities.
DON'T WORRY. BE HAPPY.
Eat more. Drink more. Buy more. You should not worry about this sort of thing because General Hayden knows that the system is in control.
Pass the bananas please.