Eric Haseltine

Haseltine came from an unusual place to the NSA: Walt Disney Imagineering. Between his overuse of the phrases “bad guys” and “war on terror”, there were a couple of interesting moments.

In Haseltine’s estimation, something called Intellipedia is the biggest advance in the intelligence community since 9/11. Intellipedia is basically an internal Wikipedia for people who work for one of the 16 US intelligence agencies. Its goal is to break down some of the barriers between these agencies in terms of information sharing and colloboration.

Right at the end of the session, interviewer Jane Mayer asked Haseltine if perhaps the Bush administration is overreacting to terrorism…if the mindset that danger lurks everywhere is appropriate and realistic. He replied that since he got involved in the intelligence community, he doesn’t sleep well at night. “I know too much.”

• 2008 New Yorker Conference
• conferences
• erichaseltine
• terrorism