The PATRIOT Act brought down the wall separating intelligence agencies from law enforcement and other entities charged with protecting the Nation from terrorism.

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.

The original PATRIOT Act greatly increased our nation's ability to share intelligence information made better use of technology and provided terrorism investigators tools that have long been available in cases involving illegal drugs and organized crime.

In the fight against terrorism national agencies keep full control over their police forces security and intelligence agencies and judicial authorities.

Our intelligence community needs better coordination of operations and exchange of information and that's why we need an overall director of national intelligence and a national counterterrorism center.

Fighting a war on terrorism is like fighting against crime. We can never hope to eradicate crime so we shouldn't bother fighting it.

At the end of the day we want to bring stability and hope to Iraq. That's the only way to defeat terrorism.

Terrorism takes us back to ages we thought were long gone if we allow it a free hand to corrupt democratic societies and destroy the basic rules of international life.

The war on terrorism has made national security a legitimate concern and a rising deficit changes brought on by globalization and even the price of oil have thrown the nation's economic health into question.

I look forward to working with our leadership team to advance the causes of smaller government lower taxes eliminating terrorism and providing affordable health care among other issues.