Since 2001 the Patriot Act has provided the means to detect and disrupt terrorist threats against the U.S. Prior to enactment of the law major legal barriers prevented intelligence national defense and law enforcement agencies from working together and sharing information.
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.
According to Richard Clarke the former White House counterterrorism chief Bush was so obsessed with Iraq that he failed to take action against Osama Bin Laden despite repeated warnings from his intelligence experts.
Terrorists continue to exploit divisions between law enforcement and the intelligence communities that limit the sharing of vital counterterrorism information.
One of the great intellectual failures of the American intelligence community and especially the counterterrorism community is to assume if someone hasn't attacked us it's because he can't or because we've defeated him.
The E.U. has moved to combat global terrorism by instituting common European arrest and evidence warrants and creating a joint situation center to pool and analyze intelligence.
The PATRIOT Act brought down the wall separating intelligence agencies from law enforcement and other entities charged with protecting the Nation from terrorism.
We ought to recognize that we have an offensive responsibility to take the war to the terrorists where they are. That responsibility has waned in the last year as military and intelligence resources were withdrawn from Afghanistan and Pakistan to be used in Iraq.
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.
The actions that we take on the counterterrorism front again are to take actions against individuals where we believe that the intelligence base is so strong and the nature of the threat is so grave and serious as well as imminent that we have no recourse except to take this action that may involve a lethal strike.