Great weight should be given to the judgment of professionals on what information, if disclosed, would harm national security.

When I was at the CIA I asked my civilian advisory board to tackle some tough questions. Among the toughest: In a political culture that every day demands more transparency and more public accountability from every aspect of national life, could American intelligence continue to survive and succeed? That jury is still out.

There is no part of the executive branch that more exists on the outer edge of executive prerogative than the American intelligence community - the intelligence community, CIA, covert action. My literal responsibility as director of CIA with regard to covert action was to inform the Congress - not to seek their approval, to inform.

Intelligence is often viewed as a profession that steals secrets and then knits those secrets together for policymakers in order to inform their judgments.

It's all about the money. Write a check, and you can build anything you want.

I am always a little skeptical when I see people talking about how much money they have.

In the commercial music world, the folk world, we sell records and concert tickets - this is the way I make a living. You go out, you make your art and hopefully people will put their money down for it. But it's getting hard. I have to be on the road so much to keep the lights on.

I had my jazz club and I had enough money. So I didn't have to write for my living.