Lindsey Graham Quotes

Our law enforcement must have every tool necessary to find and disrupt terrorists at home and abroad. That's the task of the 21st century.

I promise you, the next time there is attack on - an attack on this country, the first thing people are going to want to know is, why didn't we know about it and why didn't we stop it? And the answer better not be because we didn't have access to records or information that would have allowed us to identify these killers before they attacked.

Terrorists and criminals are increasingly adept at exploiting cutting-edge technologies to carry out or to mask their crimes. To counter current and emerging threats, the FBI actively deploys a wide range of technology-based tools, capabilities, and training that enable and enhance intelligence, national security, and law enforcement operations.

We can give our intelligence and law enforcement community the powers they need to track down and take out terrorists without undermining our commitment to the rule of law, or our basic rights and liberties.

Critics have stepped up their attacks on the President for authorizing the National Security Agency to listen to international communications of known al Qaeda members or affiliated terrorists during a time of war. The American people expect their leaders to stay a step ahead of the enemy, and the National Security Agency authorization is a critical tool in the War on Terror that saves lives and protects civil liberties at the same time.

The intelligence activities undertaken by the United States government are lawful, necessary and required to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.

What I'm OK with is protecting the American people. What I'm OK with is, when people have the intent to come to this country and take American lives, that we are prepared to do what's necessary to gain the information to protect the people of this country.

We knew that al-Qaida was a threat to our country. We knew that the Clinton administration understood this and was working against al-Qaida We did not ignore al-Qaida. We spent a lot of our time thinking about terrorism, what should we do about it.

Shannen Rossmiller's work in exposing Islamic terrorists has genuinely made our country safer. She has dedicated her life to combating the terrorist threat against the United States and has amazingly been able to infiltrate and actually stop terrorist operations. Our entire country owes her an immeasurable debt of gratitude.

To give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to track down terror here at home.

The department was set up primarily to protect us from another terrorist attack from Islamic terrorists, and yet they talk about everything but that.

The backbone of our nation's domestic defense against terrorist attacks will continue to be the men and women in local law enforcement and emergency services.

In the urgent aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, with more attacks thought to be imminent, analysts wanted to use 'contact chaining' techniques to build what the NSA describes as network graphs of people who represented potential threats.

The use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work.

A number of the major terrorist captures we have made, the terrorist operations designed for the United States that we have interrupted, were enabled by the terrorist tracking program.

We have gutted our ability to detect the next attack. And I would not stand for that as president of the United States.

There is no priority higher than the prevention of terrorism.

But it is equally incontrovertible that if our intelligence gathering process is seriously flawed, we had better find out and find out fast if we are to avoid another Sept. 11.

The federal government has not been effective enough monitoring and surveilling bad guys.

On average, since 9/11, the FBI reckons that just over 100,000 terrorism leads each year have come over the transom. Analysts and agents designate them as immediate, priority or routine, but the bureau says every one is covered.

For the first time federal, state and local bureaus of investigation are coordinating their effort, to serve as eyes and ears and protect us against further attacks.

You can gesture at the transnational problem of Islamist terrorism all you like, but it's just hot air unless you invest in proper security on the ground in your own country, with the right safeguards to civil liberties.

Most people inside the bureau believe that the blown opportunities to head off 9/11 would not recur today. Even among the FBI's doubters, few disagree that the bureau has come a long way.

In the last four years under the Patriot Act, we have seen a great increase in the ability of law enforcement officials to investigate and track terrorists.

Intelligence is our first line of defense against terrorism, and we must improve the collection capabilities and analysis of intelligence to protect the security of the United States and its allies.