John Ashcroft Quotes

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.

Preventing terrorist attacks is of the highest important, but trashing the Constitution is not the right way to do it.

It urges policy makers and the Supreme Court to make the mistake of curing what could prove to be an isolated problem by disarming the government of its principal weapon to stop future terrorist attacks.

The fact that we haven't faced another major terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11 is a very significant achievement, and one that's easy to forget - it's the dog that doesn't bark.

Since the tragedies, the Department of Homeland Security was established to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, and most importantly, to share intelligence information among government agencies and departments.

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.

There is no priority higher than the prevention 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.

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

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 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.

Secondly, not only have we put additional agents on counterterrorism, but we've also built up our analytical structure so that we're better positioned to analyze the information we have.

I think all members of Congress are very concerned about the fact that, while we want to see our law enforcement agencies have every means they can possibly have to combat terrorism, we've got to remember that we've had a Constitution in place for 225 years, and it has served us well.

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.

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

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

There was no way to lock down, or tighten up, or Fail-Safe into Security Theater a race that covers 26.2 miles, a race that travels from town to town, a race that travels past people's houses. There was no way to garrison the Boston Marathon. Now there will be.

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

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.

I think the risks that people see of terrorism are incredibly important but we are very confident we have got the right people on it and the risks have been minimised.

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