On the recordMay 25, 2010
My district makes most of our Nation's intelligence satellites. I have served on our key security committees, and I devote enormous attention to helping develop legal and operational strategies to keep our country safe. The Obama administration understands that security and liberty are not a zero-sum game. We will either get more of both or less. We must capture or kill high-value targets, which this administration is doing in far greater numbers than did the Bush administration. But we must also live our values. Most important among them is the principle that the rule of law applies to all. Tomorrow, my Subcommittee on Intelligence and Terrorism and Risk Assessment will hold a hearing to examine how the Internet is used by terrorists to train, recruit, and plan attacks inside the country and what the U.S. Government should do about it. It is the third in a series of hearings on violent extremism. The Internet is a forum for free speech and global commerce, but the dark underside of that is it can also be a forum for violence and global terror. As difficult and controversial as this subject is, we need to find the right ways to intercept those who would do us harm. Developing a strategy around the Internet has to be part of that equation, and so does protecting security and liberty.
