Political Quotes

“in December 2012, the legendary Senator from Hawaii, Daniel Inouye, passed away. He was the longtime chairman and vice chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. By a twist of fate, I succeeded him in that role, and one of the most notable surprises to me was how much of the funding for the intelligence community came with that responsibility. Together with my earlier service on the Senate Intelligence Committee, I have learned that oversight of the secret agencies of our government is one of the most challenging and important roles of Congress. It is a difficult task. Many of the issues involved in overseeing the CIA and other agencies are highly technical. Some issues present extraordinary challenges, where the security of our Nation must be balanced with the best interests of the American people. All of these matters are blanketed by the highest degree of secrecy. Despite all of these oversight challenges, there are issues that are simply black and white. The starkest of these issues in the last two decades was the CIA's program to torture detainees at black sites throughout the world after 9/11. After 9/11, many Americans thought long and hard about whether to torture terrorists to gain information to stop the next catastrophic attack. Implicit in that moral question is the assumption that we would capture the right people who might have essential intelligence to save American lives.…”