Will Hurd Quotes

I spent close to a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA and have spent most of my adult life collecting intelligence and protecting sources and methods.

I suddenly realized at the CIA that I had to make life-and-death decisions about people.

The safety and security of the nation depends more so than ever before on intelligence.

When I was younger, I actually wanted to be a CIA agent. Really. I even did the online questionnaire.

Despite constant vilifying by the media and congressional threats to take away the tools needed to uncover plots, FBI agents and CIA officers work silently around the clock and risk their own lives to keep us safe.

Andrew Warren was a rarity in the CIA's Clandestine Service - African-American, fluent in Arabic, and relatively young for an agent who'd already spent nearly a decade chasing terrorists in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq and Algeria, so deep undercover that few of his friends or family knew the nature of his work.

For some, the very act of intelligence gathering seems illegitimate when applied to the crime of terrorism.

Intelligence is about lies. If something is legal and above board, you would not need the CIA to do it.

Within the Intelligence Community, CIA is the keeper of the human intelligence mission. Technical forms of collection are vital, but a good human source is unique and can deliver decisive intelligence on our adversaries' secrets - even their intent.

Breaking a cardinal rule of spy craft, I actually let it be known that I wanted to work for the CIA.

I joined the CIA in 1985 as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service.

Counterterrorism isn't really about the nunchakus, the guns and gadgets. It's about psychology.

SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, also has no executive powers and operates abroad on CIA lines, but with a tiny percentage of the budget and a tiny percentage of the personnel.

We need to make is to strengthen the position of the director of the CIA.

The men and women of the CIA are a national treasure.

You know, as director of the CIA, I got an awful lot of intelligence about all the horrible things that could go on across the world.

Throughout my career, I had the great fortune to experience firsthand as well as to witness what it means to be a CIA officer.

Well look, CIA is an agency that has to collect intelligence, do operations. We have to take risks and it's important that we take risks and that we know that we have the support of the government and we have the support of the American people in what we're doing.

A major theme in all my books is that the CIA is not only the first line of defense but they should also be the first line of offense.

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.

Simply stated, the need for accurate intelligence and prescient analysis from CIA has never been greater than it is in 2013 - or than it will be in the coming years.

Since the tragedies, the Department of Homeland Security was established to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, and most importantly, to share intelligence information among government agencies and departments.

As an old man who remembers the intellectual exhilaration and the pleasure of having done good work that characterized the CIA when it was young, I wonder if it might not be better to speak and think in terms of restoring its culture.

When I was about, I'd say, 18 or 19 years old, I wanted to be a part of the CIA just because they know those intimate secrets... So I was just always into knowing. I like to know things.

Since September 11th Congress has created the Department of Homeland Security, more than doubled the homeland security budget and implemented a bipartisan overhaul of our intelligence systems.