Jon Kyl

I thank you and I appreciate your willingness to come here to help edify the Committee.

I do not think the President should be pitting Americans against each other. Class warfare has no place in our debates. Americans agree with President Kennedy's formulation that a rising tide lifts all boats. Americans believe--it is our…

I am working on it in two other specific areas I will not mention to try to get--yes, there is a superficial commitment to a particular cause the Government has to address.

What I am going to suggest is that--I have got a couple questions that I can ask both of you for the record, but let me preview what they are.

Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman and Senator Kyl, I am not proud of the lack of progress in the field of biosecurity.

Would you take back a concern on my part that it should be considered and planning should exist for a response and appropriate action for such an attack?

Unfortunately, our Government is not sufficiently prepared for such an attack.

More than two dozen Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed individuals with some responsibility for biodefense, not one has it for a full-time job, and nobody is in charge.

Given the catastrophic potential of an EMP attack, do you think that it should be included as one of the national planning scenarios?

Depending on the specific characteristics of the attacks, unprecedented cascading failures of our major infrastructures could result.

Our preparedness for an attack by weapons of mass destruction is an issue of vital importance.

Do you think you could have told General Eisenhower it is too complex for one man to be in charge? He would not have believed that, and neither would I.

A successful EMP attack would not require a high level of military or nuclear sophistication.

I have to ask the question whether this administration, frustrated by the fact that Congress has not acted to pass comprehensive immigration reform, is now considering an end-around the Congress by administrative action through…

If it's just a matter of funding for a commercially available program and it could be as effective as you say it is...

You might need to be careful in view of the judge's decision in Arizona yesterday putting an extra burden on the United States government when you seek to verify U.S. citizenship.

So can you answer my question then, ma'am?

I think it might be helpful for us if you could give us a brief report, memorandum, that tells us all of the things that you think are necessary for you to do your job the very best in issuing passports to people only who are entitled to…

I think it is much more difficult for people to try and pass themselves off as Americans than it is for Americans to pass themselves off as other Americans.

If they were digitized. In fact maybe you could, either one of you can relate to this program for digitization of the records.

Let me ask you both. Ms. Sprague, you indicated I think three specific things here that would be helpful to you.

I agree with Chairman Cardin that the GAO, and the GAO, that the State Department's continued inconsistent application of data verification and counterfeit fraudulent detection techniques must be corrected.

Obviously the percentages in cases where your folks were fooled are not good percentages.

If there is another 9/11 and people obtain fraudulent documents as they did in that case like drivers licenses, for example, and people ask why it happened, I think every one of us has to be able to say we did everything we could to…

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wonder if maybe we could work with the Committee that Chairman Lieberman and Ranking Member Collins...