Richard Shelby: “the world is a very different place than it was the last time Congress passed an intelligence authorization bill. As we…”

“the world is a very different place than it was the last time Congress passed an intelligence authorization bill. As we all know, we are now at war, but we are not only at war, we are in a particular kind of war: A war against global terrorism in which the lives of thousands of innocent Americans have already been lost. This war has turned some of the conventional wisdom on its head. In past wars, intelligence agencies served to support the warfighter. In this war, however, the intelligence agencies are on the front lines all over the world. Good intelligence has always been critical in wartime, but the war we fight today is an intelligence-driven one to a degree we have never seen before. This war has no front lines and the field of combat is global. Wherever terrorists and their supporters can be found, that is the battlefield. Never before have we demanded or have we needed so much from our intelligence services.”