I knew from the beginning that privacy was going to be a huge issue especially with regard to applying Total Information Awareness in counterterrorism. Because if the technology development was successful a logical place to apply it was inside the United States.

We worked to develop our own operations to advance U.S. counterterrorism objectives by penetrating terrorist safe havens and collecting intelligence that would inform policy and enable our own operations.

I want to improve TSA's counterterrorism focus through intelligence and cutting edge technology support the TSA workforce and strengthen the agency's relationships with stakeholders and the traveling public. All of these priorities are interconnected and are vital to TSA's mission - and I would say all of our collective mission.

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 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.

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.

It's not just Bin Laden or just those that are involved in the counterterrorism effort. We've gotta cast the net broader than that. But I think it's a - very special tribute that we all owe to the bravery and courage of the men and women in the intelligence and military business who performed so well to finally get it done.