TIA was being used by real users, working on real data - foreign data. Data where privacy is not an issue.

Uncontrolled access to data, with no audit trail of activity and no oversight would be going too far. This applies to both commercial and government use of data about people.

One of the reasons I continue to speak out is that the solutions to the counterterrorism problem involve other parts of the national security community - especially other elements of the Department of Defense, State, FBI, Homeland Security and the staff.

We wanted to be as expansive as possible to make sure we didn't preclude some good ideas.

I think it is very difficult today to have a reasoned public discourse on any controversial subject. Certainly, election years present a complicating factor.

It would be ideal if we could have an uncontrolled flow of information. But we realized you can't do that.

I think if I had to do it over again, I'd do it the same way. I would just put more resources into getting the public diplomacy part much stronger than we were able to.