Al Qaida changes; Al Qaida adapts. We have to adapt as well. We rely on resources to do that. Reducing resources beyond a certain point will make us less able to adapt as our enemy adapts.
Michael HaydenRead
People have a right to privacy, but they also have a right to live. Fundamentally, we need cybersecurity and need to secure communications as well.
Interpretation
Privacy and security are both essential rights that must be balanced in the digital age.
In a world increasingly dominated by technology, the quote emphasizes the dual importance of privacy rights and the necessity to live freely and securely. It suggests that while individuals are entitled to keep their personal information private, they must also benefit from secure communications to protect their freedoms and safety. This balance is vital for a functioning society where citizens can interact and communicate without fear of compromise.
In practice
In a debate about data security, one could quote this to highlight the balance between privacy and safety.
Al Qaida changes; Al Qaida adapts. We have to adapt as well. We rely on resources to do that. Reducing resources beyond a certain point will make us less able to adapt as our enemy adapts.
Global security can be formed or threatened by heads of state whose wisdom, folly and obsessions shape global events. But often it is the security practitioners, those rarely in the headlines but whose craft and energy quietly break new ground, who keep us safe or put us in peril.
Presidents get to decide how their intelligence is served up to them, and it's the job of intelligence to adjust.
The question is how much of your privacy and your convenience and your commerce do you want your nation's security apparatus to squeeze in order to keep you safe? And it is a choice that we have to make.
American political elites feel very empowered to criticize the American intelligence community for not doing enough when they feel in danger, and as soon as we've made them feel safe again, they feel equally empowered to complain that we're doing too much.
If I designed a computer with 200 chips, I tried to design it with 150. And then I would try to design it with 100. I just tried to find every trick I could in life to design things real tiny
Thanks to modern technology, we now can deliver every text in every research library to every citizen in our country, and to everyone in the world. If we fail to do so, we are not living up to our civic duty.
Mr Edison gave America just what was needed at that moment in history. They say that when people think of me, they think of my assembly line. Mr. Edison, you built an assembly line which brought together the genius of invention, science and industry.
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.
At our computer club, we talked about it being a revolution. Computers were going to belong to everyone, and give us power, and free us from the people who owned computers and all that stuff.
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