Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on our country on 9/11/2001--terrorist attacks that killed some 3,000 people--I authored legislation, along with former Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission to reform and restructure the intelligence community, to improve its capabilities, and also to increase accountability and oversight. Now, this law is different and distinct from the PATRIOT Act. Our law established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to coordinate all of the agencies involved in intelligence gathering so that we would reduce the possibility of the dots not being connected and to allow terrorist attacks and plots to be detected and thwarted. Our legislation also created the National Counterterrorism Center, which helps to synthesize the information across government and share it with State and local governments to help keep us safer. Our bill created the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and it installed privacy officers in the major intelligence agencies. But our law, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act, shared the common goal of the PATRIOT Act of better protecting our Nation from terrorist attacks because none of us who lived through that terrible day ever wanted to see Americans die again because our Nation failed to use the tools and capabilities it had to prevent terrorist attacks. We have had terrorist attacks since that time.…”