John Sarbanes: “Secondly, I think that review process is more likely, far more likely, to produce beneficial results, because as the…”

“Secondly, I think that review process is more likely, far more likely, to produce beneficial results, because as the Senator said earlier today, the more scrutiny and discussion you have, the higher the likelihood--not a guarantee, but the higher the likelihood-- that you will have a better result. As I have listened to the Senator over these weeks of the debate, I have increasingly come to have very deep concerns about what we are doing with this legislation. I feel for the Senator when he says people are not--even now, as we near the last hour, focusing fully on the implications and the consequences of what we are discussing. Back in September, the Baltimore Sun published an editorial, and I want to read a couple of paragraphs from it. This is from September 23 of this year: Months of debate have made clear that this bureaucratic boondoggle offers no promise of making the homeland more secure. Worse, it takes the focus off the need for tighter oversight of the Nation's security systems. President Bush offered the most sweeping government reorganization in a half a century, largely as a political and public relations tactic. He was trying to counter Senate Democrats who were advancing similar legislation of their own. He timed the unveiling of his plan to drown out the testimony of FBI Agent Coleen Rowley, who was blowing the whistle on the security failures of her hidebound agency that blinded it to the clues of the September 11 attacks.”