John Cornyn: “one of the lessons America learned after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, is the danger of treating our fight…”

“one of the lessons America learned after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, is the danger of treating our fight against global terrorism as a law enforcement function alone. This was documented time and time again, whether it is the wall that was erected that prevented intelligence authorities from getting access to important information and sharing it with law enforcement authorities, and vice versa, or whether it was waiting until a terrorist attack occurred and then merely investigating in the rubble and the destruction left behind, and then prosecuting the person, if, in fact, he could be prosecuted and brought to justice. It concerns me a great deal that we have seemed to lapse once again into a pre-September 11 mindset where some of our colleagues, as we debate the use of terrorist tribunals and the access to our court system those convicted of war crimes should have, seem to have forgotten some of those lessons learned from September 11. It is important we not fight this global war on terrorism strictly as a law enforcement matter, punishing conduct after the fact rather than gaining intelligence we need in order to detect, deter, and disrupt terrorist attacks from occurring in the first place.”