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

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.

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

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

The problem we were struggling with within the closed market was what the incentive would be. You probably wouldn't use dollars. But those are all questions that need to be explored.

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.

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.