Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 4401, the Amplifying Local Efforts to Root Out Terror Act, or the ALERT Act, of 2016. Mr. Speaker, this is the latest in a series of efforts by this Congress and, in particular, the Homeland Security Committee in a bipartisan manner to work to thwart terrorist threats in our country. Mr. Speaker, we work continuously to look back at the 9/11 Commission recommendations to make sure that we are fulfilling all of the areas of trouble that were identified by that commission where we can make ourselves more secure from terrorist threats. We also worked very hard as a committee looking at the Boston Marathon bombing. We worked on that and found out that information sharing was not as great as it should have been. In fact, it was one of the things that could have prevented that from occurring. The police commissioner of Boston testified in front of the committee and was asked: Did you know the information that the Federal law enforcement officials had? His answer was: No. Then he was asked: Would it have been helpful for you to know that? And he said: Of course. Yet, that information wasn't available. We have worked in the committee to make sure that information is shared at the local, regional, county, and State levels as well as the Federal law enforcement agency communities.…”