Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, we learned something 6 weeks ago. It was a very painful lesson. We learned that legislation was needed to provide law enforcement and intelligence additional tools that they needed to address the threat of terrorism and terrorists. Mr. Speaker, we may not have understood and appreciated the word ``terrorism'' and what terrorists were before September 11, but we certainly do today. We know who they are, we know what they are capable of. We may not have appreciated the need for this legislation before September 11, but surely today we appreciate the need for this legislation and the urgency of such legislation. Mr. Speaker, we may not have thought too much about giving law enforcement stronger tools for combatting international terrorism before September 11, but today we think a lot about that. We realize that that needs to be done. We did not investigate terrorists and identify them on a real-time basis before September 11. We sometimes overlooked the urgency. We know that urgency today. Finally, Mr. Speaker, we now know that we need to cooperate not only between agencies, law enforcement agencies, but between countries and between the private sector and government to track terrorists, to track their assets, to monitor their activities. If we did not realize that before September 11, surely we know now the price we pay when they exploit our vulnerabilities.”