Susan Collins

I think there is an easily drawn distinction between educating the American people about the threat generally...

We have to work together as a society in order to nail down these problems.

I was interested when you described the gains made by the Department as 'fragile,' and I think that is a good cautionary note to us.

To fix those problems, we should not rearrange the deck chairs again.

The failure to appoint a point person to come up with a narrative, the failure to recognize the term of Islamist extremism...

I certainly agree with Mr. Flynn that an alert citizenry in many ways is our best defense.

We need to move away from essentially a largely offense-based and largely overreliance on Federal capability.

Our goal was to create a coordinated effort among the Department of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and the National Counterterrorism Center.

We play what I call 'Executive Branch Swiss cheese' from Administration to Administration.

I mean, we have seen these threats mount, and to go back to earlier comments made, what is likely to take place in the wake of some type of cyber catastrophe is going to be messier and not nearly as useful as doing something now.

Actually what we are looking for was common ground with Senator McCain sitting to my left and Senator Lieberman over here.

Local residents are the first line of defense against terror plots in this country because they know what looks suspicious in their neighborhoods.

I think that we can conclude that a completely voluntary system where we do nothing related to critical infrastructure will not solve the problem.

I would also point out as my final comment that while all of us, everybody agrees that improved information sharing is absolutely essential, it is far from a panacea that will lead to improved cybersecurity.

We really have to figure out how we not keep everything in a cone of silence, but we really push the envelope on pushing information out.

We simply cannot tolerate giving our adversaries information that they can turn against us.

If we let those disagreements sink a bill that requires critical infrastructure to meet certain standards... we will be failing the American people.

The communities, the companies, and the countries that are best able to manage risk, to withstand it, to promptly respond and recover from it, and to adapt to it that will be a competitive advantage over everybody else.

The terrorist threats facing our country have evolved since the horrific attacks on September 11, 2001 (9/11).

I believe that privatization would result in rural America being left behind.

The Postal Service has a $15 billion line of credit to the U.S. Treasury and is a participant in the Federal employee programs.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It has been a pleasure to join you in this effort.

It is not sufficient and you may not like the bill, but to have the bill blasted is not helpful.

Senator Carper and I are totally open to the idea of a new health program for the Postal Service that takes them out of the Federal employee program.

In most cases, hospice care enables dying patients to remain in the comfort of their homes, free from unnecessary pain and surrounded by family and friends.