Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the National Security Agency, is likely to be President Bush’s nominee to replace CIA Director Porter Goss, or so say chatterers in the capitol.

As NSA director, Hayden was in charge of implementing President Bush’s program of warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens, and the general served as the administration’s spokesperson on the topic during the initial controversy last winter.

While Hayden comes off as a pleasant fellow, an exchange he had with a reporter back in January revealed that he had an alarming ignorance about the constituional law he and the president were accused of breaking:

REPORTER: [Regarding] the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I’m no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American’s right against unlawful searches and seizures.

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN: Actually, the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure. That’s what it says.

REPORTER:: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

REPORTER:: But does it not say probable –

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN: No.

REPORTER: The court standard, the legal standard –

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

Text of the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That’s like Dr. Strangelove scary.