But my point is that we need public buy-in. It is not just making people feel better, Mr. Hayden.

Total operational control over our border is effectively an unreachable goal.

One of the other ways in which the law attempted to give the DNI authority...

I appreciate her holding the gavel and bringing the hearing to order.

The biothreat is real, as Dr. Majidi said. We know our adversaries are pursuing biological weapons.

What Congress decides now will dictate the future of our emergency response capabilities.

I was surprised at the scope of this program; 58,810 Iraqi refugees have been resettled and are living here.

the result of the strategic risk assessment is that you continue to consider the threat of a bioterrorist attack to be real.

Should we be admitting 50,000 people over here to our country?

It is insulting to us that we are doing this.

I would urge all Members of Congress to get a classified briefing on the biothreat from the intelligence community.

We both felt that this was a case where the balance of public interest and safety was in putting this information out, not everything, but that there had been a specific, credible, unconfirmed threat.

I agree with you totally. It has been very productive.

It was interesting, and, of course, as I said at the beginning, the odd thing is that when the apprehensions go down, we conclude that there is less illegal immigration, right?

Identifying individuals who overstay is a crucial component of securing our borders and making our immigration system credible.

But the reality is that if we were attacked by one of those nine other biological agents, we do not really have medical countermeasures for those now, do we?

It is foolish at this moment to cut the budget of the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security.

We are very appreciative of Senators Lieberman and McCain's leadership and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in their work to reallocate the D Block for public safety use.

Senator McCain was, as you two know, the original sponsor of the legislation that created the 9/11 Commission.

you have directed Customs and Border Protection to come up with a new index.

It is very important that illegal immigrants are counted in our census.

It gave the DNI two major responsibilities: One was to be the leader of the intelligence community, and the second was to be the senior adviser on intelligence matters to the President.

Are we safer, or are we just safer from the tactics terrorists have already tried?

It is just unacceptable that we are still unable to systematically identify people who overstay.

I think because of his background in the military and credibility at the Pentagon, has actually negotiated an agreement with Secretary Robert Gates.