I believe that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must be reformed. We must improve the American public's confidence in, and perception of, our national security programs, by increasing transparency, strengthening oversight, and safeguarding civil liberties.
I think whenever something is - whenever there's something that affects the public good, then there does need to be some form of public oversight.
What I want veterans to know is that VA is here to care for them. VA is a good system - health care wise, safety wise - highly comparable to any other system out there. Our oversight reviews tell us that. I'm very comfortable in the quality of our system.
As both a career intelligence officer and as an American citizen, I am a strong believer in the importance of oversight. Simply put, experience has taught us that CIA cannot be effective without the people's trust, and we cannot hope to earn that trust without the accountability that comes with Congressional oversight.
If we cannot share aspects of our secret work with the public, we should do so with their elected representatives. For CIA oversight is a vital link to the open society we defend. It's a defining feature of the U.S. intelligence community and one of the many things that distinguishes us from the hostile services we face in the field.
A lack of government oversight hasn't hindered the Internet. Quite the opposite. A hands-off approach is largely responsible for its fantastic growth and success.
A strong police presence keeps individuals involved in 'street life' from triggering the most severe penalties of the law by providing a surrogate for the self-control and parental oversight that they lack.
Large financial institutions in this country will always play a role that is essential to our economic growth. But they must only be permitted to grow and interconnect, throughout our economy, under careful oversight and with a mechanism for allowing those connections to be broken safely.
Edward Snowden, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, professes to have had access to whatever he wanted to know about anyone's anything. If he's telling the truth, why does he have such permeability without any government oversight? Is that OK with you?
I respect the Congress's oversight responsibility.
