. >> senator fraenk, senator flake, members of the subcommittee, i thank you very much for the invitation to appear today. it is always an honor to be asked to provide one's views to the senate of the united states. and i thank you for affording me that opportunity. i should begin by saying as a current holder of a top secret clearance for some of the work i continue to do for dhs i have limited what i have read to what has been lawfully declassified by the dni, as have most of the people in my position, which somewhat constrains how i can speak to the issues today. that having been said, i would make four basic points. the first is that transparency is a good thing but unlimited transparency cannot be our end goal. secrecy itself has its virtues in any number of circumstances. one can think of everything ranging from the attorney-client privilege to the identity of an undercover officer in a gang in los angeles to any number of reasons why governments legitimately keep secrets that are subject to oversight in a classified manner, either through the oversight of their executive branch or