Tom Ridge Quotes

Why we cannot build a system like El Al to be proactive. Why do we have only to react? The shoe bomber - reaction? Take off your shoes. The Nigerian - the body scanner is a result of the Nigerian guy.

How many terrorist attacks has TSA thwarted? We're never going to know the true answer to that question.

Airport security exists to guard us against terrorist attacks.

I believe the public's confidence would be increased if the federal government took over the functions of airport security screening for all passengers.

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

The reason we are doing these types of pat downs and using the advanced imagery technology is trying to take the latest intelligence and how we know al Qaeda and affiliates want to hurt us, they want to bring down whether it is passenger air craft or cargo aircraft.

Now we are using the body scanner to scan the pilots. They became the dangerous people of this country?

Of course, you always have to be concerned about hijacking. But with the measures that are in place right now, I'd say that probably the airways are as safe as they've been in a good number of years.

If we announced threats [to airlines and flights] as we received them, we would be catering to the terrorists' goals.

We know that terrorism is going to happen in the future, and we need to be prepared for it.

There were precisely two groups of people who desperately wanted airport security to be browbeaten into giving suspicious passengers a pass: terrorists and Democrats.

There is only so much negotiating and maneuvering that can be done while the aircraft is under siege in mid-air. Therefore, the best way to put a stop to hijacking is by having high levels of security implemented by qualified and trained personnel both on the ground and in the air.

Congress has greatly tightened the loopholes terrorists can use to harm Americans. We need to do more. We need controls immediately on what forms of ID are adequate to board planes and enter secure sites.

I did not want to provide a blueprint or roadmap for the terrorists, saying 'Here are our new security procedures'.

The bottom line is, if somebody doesn't go through proper security screening, they're not going to go on the flight.

I think the American people believe in stopping and preventing terrorism pretty much at any cost.

Airport security is a particular bugbear. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, while I can see that averting terrorism is manifestly important, the measures taken seem, simultaneously, absurd.

We want to be sensitive to people's concerns about privacy about their personal being and things, while ensuring that everybody on every flight has been properly screened.

Each and every one of the security measures we implement serves an important goal: providing safe and efficient air travel for the millions of people who rely on our aviation system every day.

There is no priority higher than the prevention of terrorism.

As the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks draws near we must ensure our nation is prepared to handle the continued threat of violence and terrorism on our country.

You can't imagine a world, quite frankly, without a safe and secure aviation system. And so our job is to really focus on that, and what we need to do to keep it safe and secure.

Air travel survived decades of terrorism, including attacks which resulted in the deaths of everyone on the plane. It survived 9/11. It'll survive the next successful attack. The only real worry is that we'll scare ourselves into making air travel so onerous that we won't fly anymore.

Despite living in this post-9/11 age of transnational terrorism, the risk of death during air travel has plummeted to the point where we now measure it in the 'per billions' of passengers.

My government accords top most priority to national security. Therefore, effective steps are being taken to tackle terrorism and naxalism.