Susan Collins

With the welcome news that Osama bin Laden has been killed, I want to join the Chairman in thanking everyone involved.

But this is a program that is not an expensive program that allows you to do more than you otherwise could.

The effort to secure our borders is not limited to the borders themselves.

Border security is critical not only to prevent individuals from entering the United States illegally for whatever reason, but also to stop...those who are determined to harm us.

Despite the killing of Osama bin Laden, we must never forget that the battle against Islamist extremism will continue.

From my perspective, it just still seems prudent to temporarily, at least, elevate the threat level until the assessment is completed.

And it is an example of the kind of coordination that you have advocated and helped advance across department lines.

I truly do not understand, in light of DHS's own assessment that the terrorist threat is higher from the Northern Border and that there is significant criminal activity and smuggling of drugs, people, and weapons, why the Administration…

But although the known traveler gets screened, assuming I am reading your passport correctly, the baggage is screened through the X-ray machine and the passenger goes through a metal detector, but there would not be the kind of screening…

Did your committee... take a look at whether those guidelines and Memoranda of Understanding... need revision?

As we have seen over the years, terrorists continue to look for gaps in our aviation security procedures.

Our government's first priority is to protect against terrorism and the public will accept a certain level of intrusion and inconvenience at our airports.

I am informed that he pled guilty today.

It has been a decade since the anthrax attacks that left 5 people dead and 17 sickened.

I think this was an excellent hearing because of the extraordinary witnesses that we have.

I continue to believe that as we expand information sharing, which I think is absolutely critical, that this board is an important check on the process.

Senator Lieberman and I, in my view, improved the bill by expanding it beyond the Department of Homeland Security to cover all Executive Branch agencies.

I think the Executive Order strikes a sensible balance between protecting information from unauthorized disclosure and coordinating information sharing across all levels of government.

I think you want more people on the alert. I think you want the average citizen watching for suspicious activity.

I appreciated the irony also.

I do think that we need to move toward a more risk-based system and TSA is doing that, to Administrator Pistole's credit.

If there is anything we know about al-Qaeda, it is that its members have demonstrated extraordinary patience over the years.

I am truly baffled by the Administration's slowness in this regard because it is an important check

I am going to push with the Chairman to continue to argue that we need one person accountable to Congress who is clearly in charge of the strategy for CVE and for homegrown terrorism.

I think a 6-year term is too long and probably we should be looking at a 3-year term.