{"id":84504,"date":"2013-10-19T01:28:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T00:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/americas\/2013\/10\/cheney-feared-terrorist-heart-attack-20131018234739837575.html"},"modified":"2013-10-19T01:28:41","modified_gmt":"2013-10-19T00:28:41","slug":"cheney-feared-terrorist-heart-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/cheney-feared-terrorist-heart-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheney feared terrorist heart attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ctl00_cphBody_tdTextContent\">\n<p>Dick Cheney, the former US vice president, said he disabled the wireless function of his heart defibrillator because he feared terrorists would hack it to give him a heart attack.<\/p>\n<p>Cheney, George W Bush&#8217;s right-hand-man in the so-called &#8220;war on terror&#8221;, said the device&#8217;s function was disabled by his\u00a0cardiologist Jonathan Reiner in 2007, in case a terrorist tried to send his\u00a0heart a fatal shock.<\/p>\n<p>The scenario is similar to a plot line in the television programme, Homeland, where a renegade US soldier helps hack a device in the body of the US vice-president to give him a fatal shock.<\/p>\n<p>Cheney, who disabled his device before Homeland was broadcast, told CBS&#8217;s 60 Minutes programme he thought the plot line was &#8220;credible&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was aware of the danger that existed&#8230; I found it credible. I know from the experience we had, and the necessity for adjusting my own device, that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The CBS interview is broadcast in America on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Cheney has had five heart attacks, the first of which happened when he was 37. He underwent a heart transplant nearly two years ago aged 71.<\/p>\n<p>An internal\u00a0defibrillator\u00a0can detect irregular heartbeats and control them with electrical jolts. Its wireless function allows medical staff to monitor a patient&#8217;s condition.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"ctl00_cphBody_lblCountBody\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"c15\"><span class=\"c14\">214<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Dick Cheney, the former US vice president, said he disabled the wireless function of his heart defibrillator because he feared terrorists would hack it to give him a heart attack.<\/p>\n<p>Cheney, George W Bush&#8217;s right-hand-man in the so-called &#8220;war on terror&#8221;, said the device&#8217;s function was disabled by his&nbsp;cardiologist Jonathan Reiner in 2007, in case a terrorist tried to send his&nbsp;heart a fatal shock.<\/p>\n<p>The scenario is similar to a plot line in the television programme, Homeland, where a renegade US soldier helps hack a device in the body of the US vice-president to give him a fatal shock.<\/p>\n<p>Cheney, who disabled his device before Homeland was broadcast, told CBS&#8217;s 60 Minutes programme he thought the plot line was &#8220;credible&#8221;.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was aware of the danger that existed&#8230; I found it credible. I know from the experience we had, and the necessity for adjusting my own device, that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The CBS interview is broadcast in America on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Cheney has had five heart attacks, the first of which happened when he was 37. He underwent a heart transplant nearly two years ago aged 71.<\/p>\n<p>An internal&nbsp;defibrillator&nbsp;can detect irregular heartbeats and control them with electrical jolts. Its wireless function allows medical staff to monitor a patient&#8217;s condition.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>214<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":84503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-84504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}