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.

Personally, I think people need to get over this 'being offended' thing. Being offended does not give you the right to silence people. I get offended by things all the time - it's just part of life. The right not to be offended is not a human right, especially in a democracy.

Rightly or wrongly, as a woman in politics, you're being judged for what you're wearing, and people are paying attention to that more than they do with men.

In a democracy, people are supreme.

However difficult it may be to bring it about, some form of world government, with agreed international law and means of enforcing the law, is inevitable.