A Former CIA chief has admitted that US spy agencies have hacked thousands of international political parties in the past.
In an interview with the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, Retired Gen. Michael Hayden said the main difference between the US and Russian intelligence groups that Kremlin intentionally use the stolen data as their weapon against the political parties.
Hayden said that he doesn't think that the Russian President Vladimir Putin is backing the Republican nominee Donal Trump and want him to win the elections, but according to him they are using the hacked information to disrupt the election process.
“This is too much of a carom shot for Putin to think he knows where that ball's going to end," says Mr. Hayden. "I think they're doing this to mess with our heads, to erode confidence in our political process."
He continued: "By the way, I would not want to be in an American court of law and be forced to deny that I never did anything like that as director of the NSA, because I could not."
In the past, he was a director of the National Security Agency and is now heading the Chertoff Group. There is also discussed the challenges faced by the cyber security.
"My definition of what the Russians did is, unfortunately, honorable state espionage," Hayden said. "A foreign intelligence service getting the internal political emails of a major political party of a major foreign adversary? Ah, game on. That's what we'd do."
Recently the US intelligence community released an official statement that declares the Russia's involvement in the recent email hacks of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
The statement read, "These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there."
In an interview with the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, Retired Gen. Michael Hayden said the main difference between the US and Russian intelligence groups that Kremlin intentionally use the stolen data as their weapon against the political parties.
Hayden said that he doesn't think that the Russian President Vladimir Putin is backing the Republican nominee Donal Trump and want him to win the elections, but according to him they are using the hacked information to disrupt the election process.
“This is too much of a carom shot for Putin to think he knows where that ball's going to end," says Mr. Hayden. "I think they're doing this to mess with our heads, to erode confidence in our political process."
He continued: "By the way, I would not want to be in an American court of law and be forced to deny that I never did anything like that as director of the NSA, because I could not."
In the past, he was a director of the National Security Agency and is now heading the Chertoff Group. There is also discussed the challenges faced by the cyber security.
"My definition of what the Russians did is, unfortunately, honorable state espionage," Hayden said. "A foreign intelligence service getting the internal political emails of a major political party of a major foreign adversary? Ah, game on. That's what we'd do."
Recently the US intelligence community released an official statement that declares the Russia's involvement in the recent email hacks of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
The statement read, "These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there."