To me, when it says that the Director of the CIA shall report to the Director of National Intelligence regarding the activities of the CIA, it says 'shall.'

I do not think it is a good answer to say, well, thousands of people could have found this information, because that is not the job of thousands of people.

Should an individual who is known to associate with known terrorists be on at least the Selectee List for additional screening?

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

as Senator Collins has pointed out, in the wake of the intelligence failures of September 11, 2001, and the weapons of mass destruction.

We need to ensure, I think, that the DHS has the identifying information it needs about international passengers at least 24 hours before departure.

There is, in fact, precedent for detaining someone on American soil as an enemy combatant in the military system, and that is Jose Padilla.

In fact, my favorite name for the bill is the Collins-Lieberman Intelligence Reform Act.

It is outrageous that our Nation's top intelligence officials were never even consulted on this vital decision.

Today's hearing focuses on two fundamental questions. Why was the Christmas Day bomber allowed to travel to the United States? And why was his name not included on the terrorist watchlist?

Very few of those 400,000 would have valid current visas.

One of the issues that really troubles me is a conversation that I had with a member of the intelligence community who said, you do not understand.

It is a point that has been of great concern to the Chairman and me for some time.

It is evident to me that you are going to get more information over a lengthier period of time than you are over just a few days.

But you did have the authority to deploy people to these high-risk posts.

I think it is very troubling that it was not and that three key intelligence officials were not asked their opinion.

Good intelligence is clearly critical to our ability to stop terrorist plots, and that is why I am very concerned about the decision to quickly charge Abdulmutallab in civilian court.

We dodged a bullet in the skies above Detroit on Christmas Day.