Originally Posted by bdschobel

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200608u/chertoff-full

Interesting excerpt, especially considering what's going on now:

What are your proudest accomplishments at this stage of the job?

The thing that I thought was most important, and I hope I have achieved to some extent, is an honest and straightforward conversation with the American people that says there's always going to be risk and that, if we really wanted to eliminate risks, we would have to [create] a society so autocratic and encumbered by security that we would have neither our liberty nor our prosperity.

We've got to find a place in the world of homeland security that does allow us to have a free society and does allow us to have prosperity and doesn't just smother us with security. But that means that we have to be honest about the fact that we will be accepting some level of risk if we do that. The extent to which we've incorporated that philosophy into Homeland Security is the thing I'm proudest of.