the current intelligence-sorting processes today could be improved by utilizing technology that can be programmed to differentiate among specific types of threats.

This is nothing less than the security of our homeland, our people, and our Nation and our efforts must rise to a level commensurate with both the challenges and the potentially catastrophic consequences.

I certainly hope that somehow the sense of urgency in our institutions is not sublimated into bureaucratic quagmires.

If somebody's a threat, they're a threat. I don't know how you make a distinction between a threat and an aviation threat.

But, what information did you have--that Customs and Border Protection had--to warrant further questioning?

the information that was available to analysts, as is usually the case, was fragmented and embedded in a large volume of other data.

It is simply unacceptable that the same gaping holes that have persisted since the tragedy of September 11, 2001, continue to plague our efforts to mitigate the threat against commercial aviation.

I think that it's a fair presumption--then once that information has been disseminated--that it has to be evaluated before anybody gets on the plane.

I mean, you don't create it, but you can nominate individuals, based on your acquisition information.

It has not been exercised.

So my final comment is to urge you to take a far harder line on the information-sharing agreements, and if countries are not willing to abide by that and share information with us, then we should kick them out of the Visa Waiver Program.

In the aftermath of the Abdulmutallab case, there was some confusion over which agency considered itself ultimately responsible for revoking of a visa on terrorism grounds.

Well, it seems to me that everybody in TIDE ought to be identified and then brought in for an interview and a determination made.

Clearly, there needs to be one in Yemen.

I think that it is unacceptable that fewer than half of the 36 countries currently participating in the Visa Security Program are now sharing all the information on dangerous individuals that is supposedly required to take advantage of…

From my perspective, the State Department had sufficient information to revoke Abdulmutallab's visa.

Do you believe that the Department has the authority to establish a visa policy that would require the suspension of all visas held by the individuals in the TIDE database pending further investigation?

the intelligence community is resistant to change, but change is precisely what the Intelligence Reform Act directed the DNI to achieve