Martin Sabo: “First, let me indicate my strong agreement with the statement of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) that getting good…”

“First, let me indicate my strong agreement with the statement of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) that getting good information and getting it accurately out to our local units of government is incredibly important. We focus on homeland security in this bill, but clearly, some of the most important work, even more important than anything we do in this bill, is the work that is done by the Intelligence Community and the FBI to gather appropriate information. And I think we are still sorting out how we get that information, even to us in Congress and to local units of government; and that remains and should remain very high on our priority list. Mr. Speaker, I urge people to vote for the motion to recommit. Our motion is a reasonable one. It is a problem that exists. I think we all understand that what goes into the belly of the plane is really a problem. From the earliest days of discussion of airplane security following 9/11, my initial response was that the biggest problem was not what went in the plane itself but what went into the belly of the plane. Frankly, at one time I was not aware of the amount of cargo that was being carried. Baggage we are screening; cargo we are not. We have technology that we can use.…”