Having a birthday around the holidays was never easy and, with every successive year, it felt more and more as if celebrating my birthday got thrown into the December holiday mix as an afterthought.

In the years preceding my imprisonment, I worked as a software programmer, designing and developing web interfaces, secure databases, and communication software; later, I was employed as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Army. Throughout each of these jobs, we used different kinds of encryption to keep prying eyes out of information we handled.

In 2010, the iPhone was only three years old, and many people still didn't see smartphones as the indispensable digital appendages they are today. Seven years later, virtually everything we do causes us to bleed digital information, putting us at the mercy of invisible algorithms that threaten to consume our freedom.

Transgender folks have been part of the push for LGBT equality from the beginning, and we've spoken with loud and intelligent voices and have found political and personal success and advancement all over the world.

Many queer and trans people live - and lived - in our prison and jails, in our homeless shelters, in run-down houses and apartment buildings, and on the corners of every major city. Marriage equality doesn't help them; and the potential loss of momentum for trans/queer rights after this win could well hurt them.

No one knows my gender more than I do. You do not know my gender better than I do. A doctor doesn't know it better than I do. My parents don't know it better than I do. No one experiences my gender in the way that I experience it.

You start to forget about the world outside - it's not relevant or relatable anymore. The darkest part of solitary confinement is that you start to forget about cars and jobs and families and weather and politicians - and all the things that make up a society.

The U.S. needs legislation to protect the public's right to free speech and a free press, to protect it from the actions of the executive branch, and to promote the integrity and transparency of the U.S. government.

In my experience, working as an intelligence analyst with my own pool of sources numbering close to 100, by far the most effective forms of human intelligence collection are rapport-building and direct questioning.

The U.S. intelligence community is in a very poor position to be trusted with protecting civil liberties while engaging in intelligence work.

When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail; when you're a skilled intelligence professional, everything looks like a vital source for collection.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that when it comes to issues affecting the trans community, most people who are cisgender - a word describing those people whose gender identity is in alignment with the sex they were assigned at birth - focus too much on the administrative, legal, and medical aspects of trans identity.

Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically based dissension, it is usually the American soldier that is given the order to carry out some ill-conceived mission.

On the night of 4 November 2008, Barack Obama was elected on a platform of 'hope' and 'change.' He was hailed as a 'uniter' in an age of 'dividers.' I experienced a political awakening that night. I watched as the hope that President Obama represented was tempered by the shocking passage of Proposition 8 by a majority of voters in California.