Former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden today declared Edward Snowden a “traitor” for leaking details on the NSA’s surveillance programs to the American public, declaring it the “most serious hemorrhaging of American secrets in the history of American espionage.”

Hayden went on to claim that the NSA was “infinitely weaker” now that everyone knows about what it is doing, insisting it would take “decades” for the NSA to return to the pre-Snowden era of unchecked power.

Snowden legal adviser Jesselyn Radack dismissed Hayden’s allegations, saying that both a federal court and President Obama’s own review panel have said what Snowden uncovered was likely unconstitutional, and that this vindicates him as a whistleblower.

Reactions like Hayden’s are all-too-common in the current administration, with officials declaring anyone who reports inconvenient facts to be guilty of treason, and blaming them for the inevitable fallout from illegal and unconscionable programs.

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