I really believe that we don't have to make a trade-off between security and privacy. I think technology gives us the ability to have both.

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

You accept failure as a possible outcome of some of the experiments. If you don't get failures, you're not pushing hard enough on the objectives.

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.

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.

I knew from the beginning that privacy was going to be a huge issue, especially with regard to applying Total Information Awareness in counterterrorism. Because if the technology development was successful, a logical place to apply it was inside the United States.

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