You accept failure as a ...

You accept failure as a possible outcome of some of the experiments. If you don't get failures, you're not pushing hard enough on the objectives.
 John Poindexter

Quotes from the same author

I really believe that we don't have to make a trade-off between security and privacy. I think technology gives us the ability to have both.
 John Poindexter
I think if I had to do it over again, I'd do it the same way. I would just put more resources into getting the public diplomacy part much stronger than we were able to.
 John Poindexter
Uncontrolled access to data, with no audit trail of activity and no oversight would be going too far. This applies to both commercial and government use of data about people.
 John Poindexter
Nobody - myself included - believes that we could ever achieve total information awareness. But the government needs to set goals and long-range objectives. Total information awareness is a good goal.
 John Poindexter