Of the roughly 323 million citizens of the United States, more than four million hold federal security clearances. An even smaller number of these individuals hold the highest clearances. They are simultaneously the most trusted—and some of the most scrutinized—individuals in the world. Until now, that scrutiny generally stopped where the real and virtual worlds coalesce: social media.

To badly mangle Marx, a specter is haunting Fourth Amendment law—the specter of technological change. In a number of recent cases, in a number of different contexts, courts have questioned whether existing Fourth Amendment doctrine, developed in an analog age, is able to deal effectively with digital technologies.

Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Stephanie O'Sullivan is the top deputy to DNI James Clapper. She said her role, "similar to a chief operations officer," means that there's no telling from hour to hour what her work will entail. "My job is unpredictable ... every day is different; you just don’t know when you walk in every morning what will be next," she said.

At the age of 12, while staying with his grandparents in Philadelphia, James Clapper stuck a toothpick in the television dial to pick up the signal between channels four and five.  He then was able to reconstruct the police districts and boundaries in the city. And from there, he figured out the various call signs and police codes.  When his father, an intelligence officer for the Army, asked him what he'd done all summer, Clapper began briefing him on how the police department worked.  "My dad was dumbstruck. 'My god, I've raised my own replacement,' you know," Clapper recalled.

Flying a cohort of students up to Washington, D.C. to meet with various U.S. intelligence agencies every year, The Gordon Institute’s National Security Certificate program offers students an immersive governmental career development experience.