Saxby Chambliss Quotes

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.

As a former career intelligence professional, I have a profound appreciation for the value of intelligence. Intelligence disrupts terrorist plots and thwarts attacks. Intelligence saves lives.

There is no priority higher than the prevention of terrorism.

Governments in countries across the world have a duty to do everything possible to keep the public safe from terrorist attacks.

For some, the very act of intelligence gathering seems illegitimate when applied to the crime of terrorism.

Look, we constantly live looking at the issue of the threat of terrorism.

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.

When it comes to terrorism, the only path to safety is the path to action.

There is a terrorist threat to this country that remains, and I believe that counter-terrorism needs to be the cornerstone of our mission, our vast mission... and aviation security is something that we still have a fair amount of concerns about.

As a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, I know that the CIA, Treasury Department, National Security Agency, and others work closely to keep tabs on the IRGC's operations.

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

We know that Seattle is mentioned frequently ... a computer was found in Afghanistan showing pictures of Seattle-area landmarks. So we are in constant contact with the FBI and with other federal authorities.

Identifying terrorists on the battlefield is relatively simple.

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.

We have to have better intelligence. We have to have better interdiction capabilities. And so the issue is not how much we spend or how hard we try; the issue is are we doing it the right way? Are we being smart about it?

The fact that we have not had a terrorist attack in this country in the last six years is not a cause for complacency or a time to celebrate the end of the struggle. The threat is not going away. The enemy has not lost interest. ...Fundamentally, we're in a struggle about ideology. Terrorists want to remake the world in their own image and it is the image that is intolerant of the kinds of institutions that we cherish.

How do we prevent attacks? How do we protect our people?I think we've got to have an intelligence surge, where we are looking for every scrap of information.

Even if Osama bin Laden is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. To capture him now I don't think makes us any safer.

This killer [in Orlando] was interviewed by the FBI three times and I'm not going to second guess what career law enforcement professionals do everyday to defend our nation. But we need to look carefully at this. Should we have a broader database? You know, someone comes to the attention of FBI not once but three times, does that suggest that local law enforcement needs to know.

To protect us from terrorism, we must have the best, absolutely the best gathering of intelligence anywhere in the world.

Once we affirm the goal of trying to make sure that you don't have jihadis infiltrating terrorist flows, we need to make sure we're doing it in a thoughtful way that's thinking about the 10 and 15 and 20 years long battle we're going to have against jihadists.

We always monitor the flow of information, intelligence, threat streams to see whether we have any indication there's some imminent. We work hard to identify potential cells and disrupt them. This is one of the reasons we put so much emphasis on intelligence gathering.

Accusations fit on Greenwald really sounds like he's against all surveillance unless you can find a guy with the Al Qaeda card, wearing an Al Qaeda baseball cap, an Al Qaeda uniform.

This is... one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration. The more successful they’ve been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we’re in danger... it’s almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us.

Years ago, even prior to 9/11, I did a movie called "The Siege." I did a lot of research with the FBI and the CIA. And I was amazed at that time (I guess we might all know it now) how little information they shared with each other. So after that, I'm not surprised by anything.