Steven Aftergood Quotations

I think there will be problems and cases where employees are tripped up by the tests, ... But the bureau as a whole will adapt.

I think there is enormous understanding and tolerance for an argument from necessity, and there's willingness to retroactively forgive what might strictly speaking be violations of the law.

We have an interest on public access to government information and in government control of such access. Don't shut down these guys whether they are communicating with their families or they are reaching out to the larger public.

This whole activity was effectively concealed. It's baffling. It's basically a covert action taking place at the National Archives.

It results in unnecessary secrecy that leaves citizens in the dark.

an implicit repudiation of the CIA, which was established to be the central focus and the integrator of the nation's intelligence production.

It's a bit of a compromise, ... There is a cultural resistance to the polygraph that is different at the FBI than at the CIA. A polygraph is something that is given to new employees and suspected criminals, not to employees in good standing.

As a society we seem to be losing our ability to rationally debate complicated policy decisions. Secrecy aggravates the problem by excluding people from the debate, or by narrowing their frames of reference. Nothing less than the future of American democracy is at stake.

As a practical matter, it has proven difficult to either reform or abolish the CIA, ... The logical alternative may be to simply create an entirely new agency.

These incidents will have served a constructive purpose if the Pentagon is willing and able to learn from them. By exposing and highlighting vulnerabilities, the attacks can actually help to inoculate the system during times of crisis. But only if the appropriate lessons are learned now.