Susan Collins

As I look at the DNI or, indeed, any position in Washington, there are really three levels of power: First is access to the President; second is authority over personnel; and third is control over the budget.

It is an opportune time to identify any shortcomings in that structure and work to correct them.

I think our big threat now is attacks to our homeland, and the piece of this we need to nurture--and, in fact, it is doing well--is the NCTC.

I also believe that if the intelligence community more fully adopts the joint model of the military...

I think it is important in real terms and also symbolically--that he have that budget control.

Neither President Bush nor President Obama has fully valued the DNI as the principal adviser to the President the way we intended in the law.

The House action to zero out these funds is just plain bad policy, and I hope we will be able to overturn that legislation here in the Senate.

The DNI, Admiral Blair, issued a directive in which he claims the right to select an individual other than a CIA station chief.

The operation that tracked and killed Osama bin Laden demonstrates the kind of successful collaboration between our intelligence and operational capacities.

NCTC plays an indispensable role in that regard.

That is an offense we absolutely need in order to protect our homeland, and NCTC provides that.

I think most people who look at that say it would actually strengthen his authorities in the execution year.

I think your point about the generational change is absolutely right, and I think we are seeing that with the use of technology and networking and sharing of databases, too, because that is just what the next generation does naturally.

But the fact remains that al-Qaeda is not going away, and that is why it is time for Congress to closely examine and build upon the successes.

Last week's welcome news that Osama bin Laden was killed demonstrates exactly the kind of successful collaboration of intelligence and operations that we envisioned in reforming our capabilities.

The oversight in Congress is much too diffuse and overlapping, and the consequence of that is that we are taking much too much time of the executives, particularly in the Department of Homeland Security.

If disaster strikes, you do not want people meeting each other for the first time and exchanging business cards in the middle of it.

I think that is often forgotten when some of our colleagues argue that all of the homeland security money should go to just large urban areas.

I think we did create a compromise or some lack of clarity in order to get the bill accomplished.

The person who is in charge, whoever it is, ought to be accountable to Congress at all times.

The person who is in charge is Mr. Brennan at the White House.

We must also pass legislation to ensure that key U.S. intelligence officials are consulted following a foreign terrorist's detention in the United States.

With the leadership of Senator Collins and Lieberman, Congress created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center

We cannot become complacent or let our guard down when every single intelligence briefing that I have ever attended always warns that the enemy remains determined to attack our country.

I continue to have deep concerns that this Administration refuses to acknowledge that violent Islamist extremism is the ideology that fuels such attacks.