I keep hearing Trump complain about leaks in the White House, and how we have to find the leakers and get rid of them. I understand the need for confidentiality, but isn't there also a need for transparency? How do you draw the line between the two with respect to what's happening in the White House?

That's a great question for a normal administration. But as we knew from the campaign, Trump is highly erratic and an uncontrollable liar. Since we can't rely on his statements or information from his spokespeople, that weakens his claim to privacy. Americans require transparency / leaks to figure out something close to the truth.

Also Trump has declared "war" on the security state that has deep access to information - he cannot win that one.

All sorts of weirdness here. Let's not release the tax returns promised during the campaign; let's make the W.H. visitors' logs closed to inspection; let's threaten to end daily press briefings. But divulging top-secret intelligence to Soviet visitors? Sure, let's go ahead and do that.