Ronald Kessler

Because of the terrorist threat, the FBI and CIA have become as important as the military in preserving our freedom. Yet while thanking our military is standard practice in American life, no one thinks of thanking the FBI, the CIA, or the rest of the intelligence community for keeping us safe since 9/11.

The 9/11 commission recommended the appointment of a national intelligence director with budgetary authority to better coordinate the work of the intelligence community and resolve differences.

The FBI Academy teaches new agents that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Complex man that he was, J. Edgar Hoover left nothing to chance. The director shrewdly recognized that building what became known as the world's greatest law enforcement agency would not necessarily keep him in office.

I like a challenge. The fact that these are secret organizations, and also very important organizations that can engage in abuses that are so important to our national security - all that attracts me.

As you can tell from the titles of my books, I like to probe secret organizations, secret subjects. And this sometimes gets me into trouble.

The truth is that no internal reviews or congressional hearings will change the Secret Service's broken management culture. It needs better leadership.

Agents who have left the Secret Service to join other federal law enforcement agencies report that training in firearms and counterterrorism tactics in those agencies in many cases far exceeds the quality of what the Secret Service offered.

With the selection of Acting Secret Service Director Joseph P. Clancy as the director, President Obama has guaranteed that the agency will continue to lurch from one shocking security failure to another.

While most Americans know about the Boston Tea Party, few are aware of the Liberty Tree and how important it was to fanning the flames of rebellion that led to the revolution in 1775 and the Declaration of Independence.

Pension funds, endowments, and private investors trust Mitt Romney's former company Bain Capital enough to hand it billions of dollars in assets.

Hiking taxes on the so-called wealthy would help send us into a recession because so many small businesses report their income on individual tax returns. If taxes are raised, they will be less likely to be able to hire new workers and make new capital investments.