John Poindexter is an American public servant and retired admiral, known for his role in the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration. As National Security Adviser, Poindexter was involved in the controversial arms-for-hostages deal and subsequent cover-up. His career has been shaped by these events, and he remains a notable figure in discussions of U.S. political and security history.
"It would be ideal if we could have an uncontrolled flow of information. But we realized you can't do that."
"Nobody - myself included - believes that we could ever achieve total information awareness. But the government needs to set goals and long-range objectives. Total information awareness is a good goal."
"Uncontrolled access to data, with no audit trail of activity and no oversight would be going too far. This applies to both commercial and government use of data about people."
"You accept failure as a possible outcome of some of the experiments. If you don't get failures, you're not pushing hard enough on the objectives."
"I really believe that we don't have to make a trade-off between security and privacy. I think technology gives us the ability to have both."