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During my time in Pakistan, I was asked to lead an expedition to Azad Kashmir following a devastating earthquake in 2005 that claimed the lives of 80,000 people.
Saudi Arabia is a crucial ally in the Middle East, supporting U.S. efforts to fight terrorism and halt the ambitions of a hostile and increasingly aggressive Iran.
Technology is a wonderful thing. It should reduce errors, save taxpayers money, and be a tool to help agencies accomplish their missions. It should not be a burden.
To continue to be the world leader in innovation, we have to retrain and 'reskill' our workforce over time and prepare our kids for jobs that don't even exist today.
Classified information includes much more than the actual 'secrets' acquired. It includes how they were acquired and the process by which related analyses were made.
Innovation by American energy companies has led to a glut of the lighter forms of crude oil found in U.S. shale basins such as Eagle Ford, Barnett and Permian Basin.
ISIS is attempting to rebrand Islam as an ideology that justifies violence and brutality. It rejects the kind of global order our nation has sacrificed so much to achieve.
A China-friendly North Korea serves as a buffer between southern China and the U.S.'s sphere of influence in the region - something of which China is perpetually skeptical.
Securing a sustainable, safe food supply and supporting the agriculture industry at home and abroad enables the United States to serve as a global leader in national security.
I spent almost a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA. I was the guy in the back alleys at four o'clock in the morning collecting intelligence on threats to the Homeland.
Life is hard. Life is difficult. Life is going to punch you in the gut. But when you change your attitude, you change your behavior. When your behavior changes, so do your results.
Strengthening our position so that countries can purchase their energy from us and not our adversaries moves us a step closer to a very important goal - North American energy security.
Bad actors like Russia, Iran, and China have demonstrated time and time again they have both the capabilities and the intent to use the cyber domain as an operating space to wreak havoc.
Documenting and recording paperwork, managing services like passport renewals, and processing patent applications are practices that could all be dramatically improved with robotic automation.
No longer are technology and cyber issues confined to tech geeks in some backroom. In the digital age, IT issues are front and center. They are central to what government does and how it does it.
As a member of Congress who represents one of the few true swing districts in the country, I have always tried to engage groups of people who don't necessarily agree with all my votes or opinions.
You know, west Texas is already beautiful to view from the ground. I can't even imagine what it must look like as you're floating down to Earth in a capsule making its return trip from outer space.
The members of the National Clandestine Service of the CIA are called the collectors of last resort. They are tasked to seek the truth when all other avenues of intelligence collection have failed.
The fight against terrorism will not be over tomorrow or next month, or even next year. The fight will endure for years to come, and as the threat changes, so too must we adapt to these transformations.
Over the course of my career as an undercover officer in the C.I.A., I saw Russian intelligence manipulate many people. I never thought I would see the day when an American president would be one of them.
Every nation must concern themselves with ensuring its population has sufficient and stable access to food - ours is no exception. Nor can we afford to ignore other nations' concerns about access to food.
Ultimately, taxpayers deserve a government that leverages technology to serve them, rather than one that deploys unsecure, decades old technology, and keeps sensitive information in non-encrypted databases.
The government should urgently speed its adoption of AI to reduce the amount of time individuals spend unnecessarily interacting with the government and increase the speed of government response to citizens.
My dad is black and my mom is white. It was not in vogue to be an interracial couple in the 1970s in South Texas. After my parents moved to San Antonio, it took almost a year for them to find their first home.
I've been telling people, if we want to keep the Republican party in Texas, the Republican party in Texas needs to start looking like Texas. And I think that this is - that goes for the rest of the country as well.
To ensure that the free world continues to set the rules of the road in the global economy, America and its allies must work together to continue to be the world's centers of innovation and technological advancement.
The men and the women in the CIA, they do their job regardless of who is in the White House. Same for NSA. Same for FBI. These men and women are putting themselves in harm's way. Have to deal with difficult situations.
Our leaders have the solemn obligation to know the proper steps to take before acting upon them, and building a wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf Coast of Texas is a third-century solution to a 21st-century problem.
There is a scenario where AI may keep U.S. soldiers off the battlefield entirely, by using AI as a strategic advantage to prevent conflict or using it to find the critical piece of information within surveillance footage.
The government adoption of AI will not bring about a government being run by robots. Instead, our government will continue to be run by people, with help from algorithms dramatically improving government services for all Americans.
The Iraqi National Guard needs to become a reality in order to give hope to the Sunni population, and Sunni leaders that have been the focus of political prosecution should be included in the discussions of Iraq's political future.
Because the world we live in is more dangerous than our parents' was, and our children are set to inherit a world more dangerous than ours, Congress must get right our mandated mission to provide for the common defense of our country.
If a serious and sophisticated attacker has enough time he or she will get into a digital network. Governments and private corporations need to be able to detect an attacker on their network quickly, quarantine him completely and then kick him off.
Fomenting an ongoing political crisis is actually one of ISIS's objectives; it distracts policymakers' attention from terrorists inside Iraq; and it draws critical Iraqi security forces and law enforcement away from the front lines of the battle against ISIS.
As a member of Congress, a coequal branch of government designed by our founders to provide checks and balances on the executive branch, I believe that lawmakers must fulfill our oversight duty as well as keep the American people informed of the current danger.
Instead of debating whether or not Russia attempted to influence the 2016 elections - in ways that ranged from encouraging incorrect voting methods to promoting fake rallies to sharing false election stories - Americans should be debating how to counter this activity.
Before I was elected to represent southwestern Texas in the U.S. Congress, I spent almost a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA. I served in places where Russia has geopolitical interests, and learned that Russia has one simple goal: to erode trust in democratic institutions.
I was in the CIA for nine years. I am intimately familiar with the information classification system. I used it every day on the job. Like every other one of my colleagues at the agency, I approached the handling of classified information with immense care because I understand the ramifications.
Whether you are on the left or the right, we should all agree that organized human smugglers are putting innocent lives at risk. As a former undercover officer in the CIA, I am appalled that we are not maximizing the use of intelligence to deny and disrupt these transnational smuggling networks.
I think our time should be spent on talking about those things that unite us as Americans and deliver for the American public. And I think that is something that is a better use of everyone's time, and this is going to further the cause of the American people a lot more than focusing on divisions.
National Parks are a part of the American experience. They evoke memories of childhood vacations and pride in the beauty of our national landscapes. They are also reminders that if these parks are to remain beautiful and accessible, we have a responsibility as a nation to maintain and protect them.
While a physical barrier can be effective in urban areas, each sector of the border faces unique geographical, cultural and technological challenges that would be best addressed with a flexible, sector-by-sector approach that empowers the Border Patrol agents on the ground with the resources they need.
As a former undercover CIA officer, I've worked with my colleagues in the 114th Congress to approach the growing terrorist threat from a number of angles, including addressing the issue of terrorists' ease of travel, combating terrorist recruitment strategies, and improving our own counterterrorism capabilities.
Despite unprecedented levels of technological advancement and the interconnectedness of the world, the pursuit of truth in the realms of foreign policy and national security remains a critical issue. This is because the level of 'noise' that must be sifted through has also reached an unprecedented size and scope.
The U.S's first ballistic missile test was a complete disaster. The Atlas Missile Program, which began in the early 1950s, attempted its first ballistic missile launch on June 11, 1957. The rocket flew for 24 seconds before blowing up. It took two more years before the first successfully armed test flight took place.
At the secret CIA training facility called 'The Farm,' aspiring case-officers learn how to recruit spies and steal secrets. As a former CIA officer, this is where I was taught that in order to successfully recruit an asset, I must first understand what would motivate an individual to cooperate with the CIA in the first place.
Each sector of the border faces unique geographical, cultural and technological challenges that would be best addressed with a flexible, sector-by-sector approach that empowers the Border Patrol agents on the ground with the resources they need. What you need in San Diego is very different from what you need in Eagle Pass, Tex.
What we need is a 'Smart Wall' to solve our 21st century border problems. A Smart Wall would use sensor, radar and surveillance technologies to detect and track incursions across our border so we can deploy efficiently our most important resource, the men and women of Border Patrol, to perform the most difficult task - interdiction.
Professionals refer to the stages of the intelligence cycle as collection, processing, analyzing and sharing information. In most cases, the implications and significance of raw pieces of information found in classified materials are reviewed and vetted to keep sensationalized and unsubstantiated accounts from being deemed credible.
The United States and our allies will not prevent countries from doing business with Chinese companies like Huawei on the basis of security concerns alone, though there are a number of them. We must provide an alternative service or product that is better, more secure and less costly. We need to respond by out-innovating our opponent.