Ex- DIRNSA Michael Hayden: "Congress Plays a Legitimate Oversight Role in Our Business."

Or at least it did when Michael Hayden was DIRNSA in the Clinton Administration, as show by his July 1999 memo to the NSA staff regarding the issue congressional notification. When employed by the Bush administration, there were a few lapses in his zeal for Congressional notification, most notably the 2005 destruction of CIA interrogation videos.  His dislike of Congressional oversight didn't stop there. In 2006, Russ Feingold laid out Hayden's failures in this regard in a press release announcing Feingold's opposition to Hayden becoming confirmed as Director of the CIA:

General Hayden's conduct and testimony also raise serious questions about his willingness to respect congressional oversight. He was complicit in the Administration's failure to inform the full congressional intelligence committees about the warrantless surveillance program, even though this notification is required by law. In his testimony, he repeatedly failed to explain or criticize the Administration's failure to inform the full committees about the program. And he declined to commit to notifying the full committees about all intelligence activities, as is required by law.

Ultimately, Michael Hayden is a man, as James Bamford described him, "who "spent his life tacking whichever way the political winds happened to be blowing".(1)

James Bamford, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, (New York: Anchor Books, 2009), 111

7.23.1999 DIRNSA Hayden Memo on Congressional Notification