These are issues we've been grappling with since the Constitution was written: how you hold your government to account for its words and deeds. It's all about power and the abuse of power.
Regarding Wikileaks, I have profound ambivalent feelings about it. I am a firm believer in a strong intelligence service. There's a need for classified information.
The entire intelligence community is so bloated and so reliant on contractors. There's no question there's many tasks that make sense to outsource, and yet, we have followed blindly this dogma that if it's private contracting, it must be better.
Even those that hate Hillary admit she is a work horse and not a show horse. She gets down into the nuts and bolts and figures out, 'What's the policy, what's the substance?'
I know having a Jason Bourne all alone in a field firing at bad guys is much more dramatic, but it's not real.
From a counter-intelligence viewpoint, the OPM breach is really scary - but if we continue to see the erosion of purely commercial enterprises, where people lose confidence, the economy falters.
When we were subjected to a vicious character assassination campaign orchestrated by senior White House officials and championed by their allies in the right-wing echo chamber, Hillary reached out to us. Her counsel during that tumultuous period was as timely as it was wise.
I would never jeopardize classified information. I served my country well and loyally, and I had to sue the C.I.A. on First Amendment grounds.
My take is, privacy is precious. I think privacy is the last true luxury. To be able to live your life as you choose without having everyone comment on it or know about.
I'm not terribly confrontational, but I've gotten better at holding my ground.
How lucky are we to have Naomi Watts and Sean Penn playing us? We've seen the final cut now a couple times, and the scenes with the marriage fraying at the edges are still very difficult to watch. However, our hope was that no matter your political persuasion, you're taken with the idea that it's important to hold power in check.
When I was outed on July 14th, 2003, I was, until that moment, covert. That means no one outside of a very small circle knew where I really worked.
I first learned the power of trust in the CIA. There is no question that when I joined the Agency as a covert operations officer, it was still run along the 'old boys' network' model.
I can tell you, all the intelligence services in the world were running my name through their databases to see did anyone by this name come in the country? When? Do we know anything about it? Where did she stay? Who did she see?
Of course, when you're a parent, that's your paramount concern, for your children, and there were some very credible and frightening threats, and the agency declined to provide any security, and it felt like a betrayal all over again. It was really painful.
I have always been appalled by the depiction of female CIA operatives.
We don't have to sit by while Trump uses his enormous global platform to undermine our national security. We would love to be able to actually force Twitter's hand to live up to its rules, explicitly forbidding hate speech and encouraging violence.
Looking back at my career, I wish I knew then what I know now... that gender bias is built into the system, and it's unconscious in many ways. I wish I had the maturity and courage to have pushed back more. I was always trying to be a 'good girl' and play by the rules.
To my knowledge, no one has died from a cyberattack... but there is a gray area between peace and war.
I've been working with Global Zero. They are a great organization leading the resistance against nuclear war and the elimination of nuclear weapons.
