Political Quotes

“I am sorry. It was my understanding that the Senator from West Virginia raised a question about three of the deadlines in the bill, and on two of the three there is no good answer. I will give the best answer I can. On the first one, I think there is a good answer. That has to do with the so-called standards for biometrics. On that, there seems to be a pretty good consensus. That can be developed within the year timeframe that we have in the bill. The Biometric Foundation has provided that information to us. But the Senator is absolutely correct about the readers--the machines--that will have to read the passports or other documents that have this data embedded in them. As to precisely how long it will take to get those online, there is not a good specific answer, nor is there an answer as to when we can have the interoperable system developed, which is one of the central features of the bill. In fact, I was just speaking with the FBI Director this afternoon about what we can do to make this happen as quickly as possible.”