Give us an explanation of that in plain language. In other words, what did not happen with Abdulmutallab which would happen now under the change?

I do not want to diminish privacy concerns, but to me, they must be secondary to the quest--just as you said, one mistake and people get killed.

We were using a standard that was, as you said, legalistic.

Please take back both to the Department and then to any individual case where a chief of mission says, 'No, I do not want the Visa Security Program,' that they have to find room.

I think, I hear there remains a serious turf battle... between the Directorate of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency.

America is the indispensable Nation in the world.

congressional oversight, I think leadership from our point of view have to be the keys to doing that

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), which is commonly known as the '9/11 Commission Act,' was the most sweeping intelligence reform since the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) more than 50…

I mean, at some level, frankly, I say, too bad that the airline has to do that extra work to stop somebody from getting on a plane who might blow up the plane and kill everybody on it and a lot of people on the ground.

I think it is a very tough bill to draft.

the urgency on terrorism has been too low, and we have to reject complacency.

Thanks, Senator Burris.

The bombing that was attempted on last Christmas Day, was another wake-up call for our law enforcement officials.

we are prepared to be the bad cops here. This is really important, and we are counting on you to make sure it happens.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Committee to discuss intelligence reform and interagency integration.

the obligation we have to everybody else on the plane is to check anybody we have reason to suspect of being a terrorist

We live in an age when any one of us and our young children, our grandchildren now in my case, can go on the computers, go to Google, and search an enormous array of databases immediately.

Congress was really quite effective at taking on some of the status quo.

I do think, ultimately, in these cases, security has to be given much more weight than privacy because of all that is involved.

There ought to be a category where there is some basis for concern about contact with terrorism.

I want to thank you--incidentally, just to say in public session, I know it is controversial.

Senator Lieberman, Senator Graham, and I are working on legislation to try to address this very important issue.

the Congress plays an enormously important role in ensuring that our American Muslim population understands that we need a partnership between the government and these communities

the refusal or slow walking in sharing information with us is really not acceptable because of the higher priority that we have to give to homeland security.

We have called it to repair and reinforce them so that they better protect the American people from terrorist attack.