I do believe states' rights was a sound doctrine that got hijacked by some unsavory customers for a while - like 150 years or so. I'm professionally obliged to believe that knowledge is better than ignorance but some kinds of forgetting are OK with me.
This crisis exposed very significant problems in the financial systems of the United States and some other major economies. Innovation got too far out in front of the knowledge of risk.
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.
Another factor is the decision made in 1976 to sharply divide the FBI and the foreign intelligence agencies. The FBI would collect within the United States the foreign intelligence agencies would collect overseas.
By definition intelligence deals with the unclear the unknown the deliberately hidden. What the enemies of the United States hope to deny we work to reveal.
Well our position and our chairman has talked about this extensively is that we had a lot of intelligence prior to 9/11. We knew that two al Qaeda operatives who ultimately participated in the 9/11 disaster were in the United States. We didn't find them.
The security of the United States which is so dependent on having accurate and timely intelligence is not a Republican or a Democratic issue.
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.
As Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak have repeatedly said the intelligence and security relationship between the United States and Israel at present is unprecedented. It has never been stronger.
These are Canadian and United States intelligence and law enforcement offices who are working in teams and who are using good intelligence and good law enforcement to really stop the criminals and terrorists before they ever get to the border.