Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief Michael Hayden admitted on Tuesday that the U.S. has hacked foreign political parties in past operations, just as Russia is doing right now. As it turns out, Moscow's conduct with regards to cyberattacks did not really go too far.
U.S. Reasons To Hack Foreign Political Parties Were Different From Russia´s
According to CNN, far from wanting to support the Republican Nominee Donald Trump, the retired general explained that Russian intentions are to break the American voter confidence in the political process. This opinion comes after the U.S. intelligence formally accused Russia of being the mastermind behind the Democratic National Convention hack, wanting to disrupt the presidential election.
Also, Hayden explained that even when the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) have previously done these type of hacks themselves, it was just done to influence a political election, such as what Russia is doing. Apparently, Putin might be giving green light to these operations by the paranoia that the U.S. spy agencies are doing the same to him all the time.
U.S. Spy agencies Have Been Involved In Many Scandals
"To take the internal emails and then begin to use them to influence the American election, that's quite a different matter. That has now moved from an espionage activity to a covert - or not very covert - influence operation. I think they are doing it to mess with our heads, to erode confidence in our political processes.I think they are doing it because [Russian president Vladimir Putin] is convinced we do this to him all the time. We do not. We don't," said Hayden in an interview at The Heritage Foundation.
These statements come in a time where it has been revealed the American spy agencies' involvement in many espionage activities, whether in the U.S. or in foreign countries. As reported by the International Business Times, the Edward Snowden documents showed the details of these activities, revealing controversial cases as the where the NSA tapped phone conversations of German chancellor Angela Merkel and her closest advisers for years.
