And I understand that, I testified in closed hearings over eight years because there are intelligence matters, there are sensitive matters that should not be held in a public hearing.

Collecting intelligence information is like trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant. You know, in hindsight It's great. The problem is there's a million dots at the time.

If five years from now we solve the access problem, but what we're hearing is all encrypted, I'll probably, if I'm still here, be talking about that in a very different way: the objective is the same. The objective is for us to get those conversations whether they're by an alligator clip or ones and zeros. Whoever they are, whatever they are, I need them.

I wanted all my visits to be official. When I sent the pass back with a note, I had no idea it would antagonize the president. I found out years later that it did.

I doubt that Congress would pass on the opportunity to make sure that our children were safe from terrorists.

Ask the American public if they want an FBI wiretap and they'll say, "no." If you ask them do they want a feature on their phone that helps the FBI find their missing child they'll say, "Yes."

The country was not focused on terrorism before September 11th.