Political Quotes

“Mr. President, on January 8 of this year, I requested the Government Accountability Office to conduct followup tests of our Nation's airport security screening procedures. Investigators attempted to smuggle bomb-making materials past security checkpoints in a number of airports around the country. This is something the GAO has done for Congress on several occasions since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is an important reality check for Congress to find out exactly how effective or ineffective the Transportation Security Administration's screening procedures are. TSA has spent a lot of time and money trying to prevent future terrorist attacks, and we are, no doubt, safer in many ways than we were before 9/11. However, it is important to cut through the talking points and the press releases. We need to test the system in real time with real people carrying potentially destructive materials once in a while to find out how vulnerable we still are. Unfortunately, the Obama administration, which is now responsible for keeping airline passengers safe, does not want you to know the results of these tests. In fact, the administration classified almost every word of the GAO report as ``secret.'' These sorts of classification decisions ought to be made only when the information is actually sensitive for national security reasons. The power to classify information should not be used merely to hide information that might be embarrassing to the administration.…”