Leonard Boswell Quotes

But I warn my colleagues that we will fail in our efforts to protect the homeland if we do not take additional steps to avoid a trade-off between protecting ourselves against terrorists attacks and preparing for and responding to natural disasters.

Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to the 9/11 Commission members for their valuable service and important recommendations to improve homeland security.

I will make no apologies, ever, for protecting the lives and the safety of the American people. We have to give more tools to our folks to be able to do that, not fewer, and then trust those people and oversee them to do it the right way. As president, that is exactly what I'll do.

The safety of the people is the first and foremost responsibility of government… We are not as prepared as we should be with our public safety network…. The margin for error is exceedingly and uniquely low.

The safety of the American people has got to be our number one priority. That is our most important problem.

National security needs to be priority number one and if you're willing to play politics with our national security then you have no business serving in the Senate or the House.

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.

From a parent's right to know what their children are doing, to protecting citizens across the country from the growing threat of gang violence, the House Democrat leadership is simply out to lunch.

What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked a majority of the majority,' or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America's security foremost in mind?

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.

America will be far safer if we reduce the chances of a terrorist attack in one of our cities than if we diminish the civil liberties of our own people.

Our people are working overtime - I say our people; our federal agencies in this regard - and that I'm confident that the way that you can stop this and make Americans the most protected for this is to take it to the terrorist groups.

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.

Although we must change the ways we protect our country, we must also guard against policies that appear attractive but offer little real protection and may even impede our ability to protect ourselves.

From the Medicare prescription drug plan to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the passage of No Child Left Behind, President Bush presided over a major expansion of the reach of government.

Though the views of members of the House and Senate are as divergent as the people we represent, we bear the responsibility to work through our political differences and get things done. That's our job.

All of the leading terrorism experts are clear on one thing: that in terms of protecting America, we are almost never going to know a place or a time of an attack.

The Commission's findings underscore that the nation is still vulnerable to attack and that we must move more quickly to make us safer. We must take the Commission's work and use it to make certain that such horrific attacks never occur again.

We have no more fundamental obligation in government than to ensure the safety of our citizens.

President George W. Bush's aggressive war on Islamic terrorism produced a 100 percent perfect track record of keeping the United States safe from another attack. The result has been increased security for the American people, who, in turn, have become complacent about the true nature of the threat.

The security of our country is not just a top priority, it's the top priority.

I look forward to working with our leadership team to advance the causes of smaller government, lower taxes, eliminating terrorism, and providing affordable health care, among other issues.

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

The administration points out that no major terrorist acts have occurred on American soil since 9/11. Clearly, we must be doing something right, they say, and maybe we don’t need to do much more--- at least not at home.