Barack Obama Quotes

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, it became clear that the FBI's number one priority must be the prevention of another terrorist attack.

Withdrawing federal funds to prevent radiological or biological terrorist attack - that doesn't just hurt Los Angeles: that hurts America.

The Patriot Act closed dangerous gaps in America's law enforcement and intelligence capabilities, gaps that terrorists exploited when they attacked us.

The man responsible for keeping Americans safe from another terrorist attack on American soil for nearly seven years now will go down in history as one of America's greatest presidents.

Once the attacks occur, as we learned on Sept. 11, it is too late. It makes little sense to deprive ourselves of an important, and legal, means to detect and prevent terrorist attacks while we are still in the middle of a fight to the death with al Qaeda.

If you stop one terror attack in the U.S., it may be connected to multiple other plots out there that are connected. If you reveal that you stopped one plot, it may tip our hand.

We want to look at how we would respond because, as hard as we work to prevent terrorist attacks here North America, if we have a catastrophic terrorist attack, it is the military that is going to have to go in at the request of civilian authorities.

And so every one of us in the FBI, I don't care if it's a file clerk someplace or an agent there or a computer specialist, understands that our main mission is to protect the public from another September 11, another terrorist attack.

The prompt assimilation of that intelligence will be essential if we are to avoid another September 11th.

It's very difficult to tell someone how to protect themselves from a terrorist attack, whether it occurs in the U.S. or on foreign soil, particularly when you have terrorists with no concern for human life.

The FBI. is a massive culture. It's been a culture that served America well, and it's been focused on prosecution. But what we need in terms of terrorism is prevention.

We have to think outside the box, inside the Constitution, find ways to do things that will elevate our security, reduce the risk of the incidence of terrorist attack.

In a sad twist of fate, the bill to reauthorize the Patriot Act was debated on the floor of the House of Representatives the same day that terrorists struck again.

The anguish in London is a vivid reminder of why we cannot relent in taking the steps necessary to defend our homeland from the present terrorist threat.

We are keeping New Jersey one step, several steps, ahead of terrorism.

The counterterrorism strategy known as CONTEST aimed to reduce the risk to the UK and its interests overseas from terrorism, so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence.

Our intelligence community was extremely poorly prepared before 9/11.

The Blue and White government, led by me, will assemble the strongest security cabinet against terrorism and restore deterrence.

The nature of Homeland Security is that no news is good news. And no news sometimes means somebody got interdicted at the border, somebody got interdicted before they could get on an airplane, somebody was arrested providing material support to terrorism. Homeland Security means very often something you never hear about.

We know that terrorism can happen anywhere, at anytime. And we know the best way to prevent an attack is by working together.

The bottom line is we are pursuing every single possible action to keep our country safe from terrorism.

I left DOJ's leadership back in 2005. At the time, we were still building our national security capabilities in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. And we'd made a lot of progress.

Terrorism - radical jihadist terrorism is not theoretical to me. It's real. And for seven years, I spent my life protecting our country against another one of those attacks. You won't have to worry when I'm President of the Untied States whether that can be done because I've already done it. I want the chance to do it again to protect you, your children and your families.

Enhanced interrogation gleaned information that saved American lives and - I was informed - prevented incoming terrorist attacks on this country from being successful.

We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term.