The CIA has transformed from an organization created to recruit spies to steal secrets, into a paramilitary organization, a paramilitary force. It's not supposed to be a paramilitary force. It's not good at it. It needs to return to its roots.

You can't just blurt the information out to the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador. What happens is, the information goes back to the CIA, to the originating office. The CIA will pull the relevant information out of the report, put it on a new blank sheet of paper and then type at the top, "Secret releasable to Russia." That way, nobody gets in trouble, no sources and methods are revealed, everybody's happy, and we can establish something of a liaison relationship to the Russians. That's not what the president did.

Even if torture works, it cannot be tolerated -- not in one case or a thousand or a million. If their efficacy becomes the measure of abhorrent acts, all sorts of unspeakable crimes somehow become acceptable. I may have found myself on the wrong side of government on torture. But I'm on the right side of history. There are things we should not do, even in the name of national security. One of them, I now firmly believe, is torture.

I can remember only a small handful of instances in which I talked about politics with my parents. I remember my parents telling me that Daniel Ellsberg was a hero when I was six years old.

The truth of the matter is, we can certainly fight against terrorism and fight terrorist groups around the world without having to give up our own civil liberties. They're not mutually exclusive.

It's not up to Google, it's not up to Apple to turn over our personal communications in order to save the country. It's up to the CIA and it's up to the FBI to recruit foreign - I mean to recruit human sources, rather, to penetrate these groups.

The CIA has transformed from an organization created to recruit spies to steal secrets, into a paramilitary organization, a paramilitary force. It's not supposed to be a paramilitary force. It's not good at it. It needs to return to its roots.