Rockefeller Says Security Will Be A Major Focus For The
Committee This Year
The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation held a full committee hearing Wednesday on "The
State of Aviation Security: Is Our Current System Capable of
Meeting the Threat?" Testifying were Janet Napolitano, Secretary,
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Michael Leiter, Director,
National Counterterrorism Center, former Congressman Lee Hamilton,
Co-Chair of the National Security Preparedness Group, Bipartisan
Policy Center and Former Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, and
former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, Co-Chair of the National
Security Preparedness Group, Bipartisan Policy Center and Former
Chairman of the 9/11 Commission.
The hearing was held in the wake of the attempted Christmas Day
bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight headed to Detroit. Committee
Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV opened the hearing with and
indictment of the current security situation both in the U.S. and
abroad. "A man with a bomb was able to board a plane headed for
America - so it is obvious and clear our system failed. We have a
responsibility to be brutally honest about where we have fallen
short. We have to do better. And that basic fact will
drive much of this Committee’s work in the year ahead. We
have to do better at protecting our families, safeguarding our
communities, and securing our nation."
In defending her agency, Napolitano (pictured,
right) said the threat of terrorism presents a moving target
to those trying to stop it. " We live in a world of ever-changing
risks, and we must move as aggressively as possible both to find
and fix security flaws and anticipate future vulnerabilities in all
sectors," she said. "President Obama has clearly communicated the
urgency of this task, and the American people rightfully expect
swift action. DHS and our federal partners are moving quickly to
provide just that.”
Former 9/11 Commission chair Tom Kean said President Obama
should re-establish the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
stood up by President Bush following the attacks of September 11.
“The balance between security and liberty will always be a
part of the struggle against terrorism. America must not sacrifice
one for the other and must be in the business of protecting freedom
and liberty as well as fighting terrorism. Following the 9/11
Commission recommendations, the Bush Administration created a
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to advise the executive
branch and oversee government efforts to defend civil liberties. We
continue to believe that the Board provides critical functions and
we urge President Obama to reconstitute it, quickly appoint its
Members, and allow them full access to the information and the
authority to perform to perform this essential function.”
The former Vice-Chair of the 9/11 commission said the security
infrastructure needs to do a better job of judging the sources of
potential attacks. "As the President’s review has shown, we
had a ‘strategic sense’ that Al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula was becoming a threat, but ‘we didn’t know
they had progressed to the point of actually launching individuals
here.’ This at once shows the need for improved collection
and better analysis. We collect a tremendous amount of intelligence
and we need the very best people not only sorting through it for
tactical details, but in a strategic sense asking where the next
attack will come from.”
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