Patricia Schroeder: “I rise in support of the Schiff-Schumer amendment. Good technology is an important key to a successful counterterrorism…”

“I rise in support of the Schiff-Schumer amendment. Good technology is an important key to a successful counterterrorism policy. Look at how the Wall Street Journal characterized our antiterrorism effort in their headlines yesterday: Despite Tough Words, Antiterrorism Effort in U.S. is Still Flawed--Political, Legal Constraints, Old Technology Hinder FBI as Threat Grows. This amendment today is about correcting one of those flaws--old technology. The money in the Schiff amendment is crucial to the United States effort to research and develop explosive detection and weapons detection devices that can be applied to prevent terrorism from occuring. We have to be smarter than the terrorists. We have the technological capability to outsmart them. There are several technologies in the pipeline on explosive detection and weapons detection that are more than promising--they are probable. But we need to get money to NIJ to speed up the process of getting them to a point where law enforcement officers can use them. The Schiff-Schroeder amendment puts money that the Congress has already authorized for counter-terrorism research into the hands of our law enforcement technology experts. This amendment would tell them to accelerate the good work they are doing on explosive detection and weapons detection. This is a race for a vaccine--a vaccine against terrorism. This Congress has done a remarkable job of beefing up law enforcement technology.”