Mike Pompeo: “I want to first start by commending Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Ruppersberger for their great work on crafting…”

“I want to first start by commending Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Ruppersberger for their great work on crafting this bipartisan bill, a strong piece of legislation that addresses some tremendously important issues that face our country. While this legislation in its detail--and we've heard the chairman speak about it--talks about new initiatives and programs and three- letter Agencies, this is about something different from that. This is about protecting the American people. This is about keeping the citizens of El Dorado and Coffeyville and Wichita and Anthony, Kansas, safe against a staggeringly large and very real threat. On September 11, now over a decade ago, we began to enter a very different time, very different war. Now 15 years ago, I was serving in the military. I served along the East German border. Then it was different. We could see the enemy. They wore uniforms. There were fences and boundaries. And today, we live in a very, very different world. And this legislation, the 2013 Intelligence bill, attempts to, in a fiscally responsible way while protecting the privacy of every American citizen in a conscientious way, address those very real threats. {time} 1440 It is easy sometimes to forget--to forget from a decade ago and forget that al Qaeda is still there, active and trying, fighting vigorously to take down the American way of life.…”