Tom Ridge Quotations

You have to enable and empower people to make decisions independent of you. As I've learned, each person on a team is an extension of your leadership; if they feel empowered by you they will magnify your power to lead.

Liberty is the most precious gift we offer our citizens.

There's just no doubt in my mind - under any set of rules - water boarding is torture.

One of America's greatest strengths is the soft power of our value system and how we treat prisoners of war, and we don't torture.

This war on terrorism is going to continue for an indefinite period of time.

I'm confident that the terrorists are aware that from the curb to the cockpit we've got additional security measures that didn't exist a couple of years ago.

What he needs to understand is that the turnaround in Pennsylvania has everything to do with the people in Pennsylvania, and not the people on Pennsylvania Avenue,

We got very specific information regarding when and what flights. It didn't quite have the specificity with regard to the nature of the attack, but there was certainly enough credibility associated with the when and the where, the date and the flight

We're going to have an entry-exit system based on a machine-readable passport, so we'll be able to verify and validate they are who they claim to be,

We're going to continue the convoy of food and water, particularly water and ice, over the next several days, ... We are working with the state and local communities to determine the debris removal needs and we're prepared to do everything we can to accelerate that process.

We have to give people something to do.

we're concerned about targets beyond these and are working to get more information about them.

Let us to do all we can to honor all those who rose up with resolve to defeat evil, who were released into the arms of angels to see the grateful face of God,

More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it. Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on alert, There were times when the White House was really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' We often lost the argument.

I am going to step back a little bit, breathe deeply and then decide.

I am saddened that this job is even necessary. But it is necessary. So I will give it everything I have. The task is enormous.

Celebrity or unknown, our job is to act on information that others have given us,

Bush is willing to tackle the tough issues -- the ones some leaders refuse to touch, ... Issues such as real education reform, national security and defense, preserving Social Security and restoring America's values to government.

I can't imagine a better place to begin the renewal of America's purpose than the cradle of American democracy,

If America has the opportunity to make a strategic investment that not only enhances security but makes us a better, safer, stronger, or healthier country, then we need to do that. If you secure every home town, then the homeland is secure.

God forbid, there may come a time when the local authorities or national authorities will tell you that you've got to use them. But for the time being, we just don't want folks sealing up their doors or sealing up their windows,

if the Brazilian government thinks it's in their interests (to fingerprint and photograph Americans), so be it.

He is not one to parse. He has said he will serve out his term and that has not changed,

We've engaged the law enforcement community around this country, but there are also certain things we can do within this country outside of law enforcement that would be a deterrent to an attack, ... The president's strategy gives us a road map to accomplish that.

We think, based on the initiatives that we've announced today, that we can absorb that cost.

We think at the end of the day, a lot of this is going to be about turnout in the battleground states,

to date, there is no specific intelligence that tells us or indicates to us that the convention itself would be subject to an attack.

It all adds up to this: your country is ready, not waiting,

I think we've accomplished a great deal in a short period of time, ... We have to be right a billion-plus times a year. ... The terrorists only have to be right once.

I think they moved as quickly as they could,

It is as reliable a source, group of sources that we've ever seen before.

I think there is a significant minority within the party that would either like it removed from the platform or at least a recognition that decent God-fearing people don't always have the same view on this,

I think for a long time we thought we were 'fortress America' and that we were impenetrable. Maybe in our heart of hearts we knew sooner or later that it was going to happen, ... But to take a look at the president and extraordinary vice president ... I couldn't think of a better team at a tougher time to be leading America, so I'm optimistic about it.

Our goal is to deter any potential attack with multiple layers of security and, based on what I have seen and heard, I can tell you that the security plans and arrangements and commitment of federal, state and local officials is very, very strong,

requesting some $36.2 billion clearly communicates this administration's commitment to investing in our Homeland Security.

Terrorists are strategic actors, ... They choose their targets deliberately, and they choose them based on the weaknesses they observe in our defenses and in our preparations. They use speed and surprise to terrorize.

I think Gov. Bush, with his record in Texas and with good support from the Republican Party here and his message, I think he can win regardless of who's number two,

Maybe that's very much the reason that you'd be worried about it, because you hadn't seen it before,

might require an added level of protection, an added layer of safety.

will be a president we can respect and we can trust.

While your government is doing everything it can to prevent an attack, citizens also should know what to do, ... Because in the end, being prepared, knowing what to do, can and will save lives.

We'll be ready to answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people.

We realize that's a vulnerability that could be exploited with potentially catastrophic consequences,

We'll want them to pull in all that information and sort it out between rumor and suspicion and fact and speculation and misinformation and do an assessment, do an analysis and then communicate it -- if it's a real threat -- communicate that to state and local governments,

We have more protective measures in place at yellow today than we did six months or a year ago, ... And there will be more put in place on a day-to-day basis every single day, for as long as the department exists.

We could go back over the past two years and pick out threat reports of pretty much the same substance,

Today the United States government raised the national threat level.

to make North America more secure and more prosperous.

Yeah, we weren't certain, ... Still, in the context of everything else (intelligence chatter and a terror attack in Saudi Arabia), we could not set it aside and dismiss it as not credible.

We know they have the capability to succeed and they also hold the mistaken belief that their attacks will have an impact on America's resolve,

We can be afraid or we can be ready,

The president has given me an extraordinary opportunity to serve my country in this incredible period since September 11th, 2001.

The quality of this intelligence, based on multiple reporting streams in multiple locations, is rarely seen and is alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information,

unify people, priorities and programs under a single line of authority.

We are confident they are taking this threat seriously,

Time will tell if we can directly link him to a specific organization or not,

You don't need too many committed to martyrdom to wreak havoc.

Today we announce the Homeland Security Advisory system,

We are working with the pilots' association in Great Britain and other foreign carriers, ... We hope to convince them in time that, on targeted flights, the use of well-trained air marshals adds another level of security for international travel.

We don't want to broadcast to everybody where we're going to be doing this, but those areas and elements within the private sector, they have already been contacted and they understand that for the time being we want to maintain a similar level of security,

When our incident management team and our coordination center was notified (of the explosion), within in a very short period of time ... we knew what was going on at the local (and) state level, ... We engaged immediately in conversations with the Coast Guard, the EPA, the Health and Human Services.

with as much information as possible as quickly as possible.

The passengers and crew are an emblem of America's great glory: freedom and patriotism demonstrated at its highest regard, ... Here upon this field of honor, lives were saved and heroes were made.

There are a lot of us who think that some of the information we share with the public probably should be restricted in some fashion, ... We may have to take a look at these kinds of issues from a different perspective because of the tragedy of September 11.

With so many symbolic gatherings in the next few months, we must be aggressive,

We want visitors from abroad to continue to come to the United States, but we also want to secure our borders,

We had specific information that needed to be acted upon relative to the Air France flights.

While there are no indications that terrorists are planning similar attacks in the United States in the near term, we have asked train and rail operators in the country to be on a heightened state of alert,

to start sealing up their doors or ... windows.

We have 90 days to get things ready to open the front door,

We do not know how long it will take to defeat the scourge of terrorism or how many Americans will give their lives for the cause. But we do know one thing with absolute certainty: The passengers and crew of Flight 93 won the first battle,

variety of checks normally done with government employment.

We do recommend that individuals and families in the days ahead take some time to prepare for emergency,

We are struggling to make sense of what appears to be yet another brutal racist rampage,

Biometrics not only accurately identifies and cross-checks travelers and potential terrorists before they enter our countries, but they also provide increased travel document security and important personal identity protections.

Be wary and be mindful, ... Let's make sure that every individual citizen who sees something suspicious reports it,

Every step of the way we've made aviation more secure, but we're still not where we need to be,

Every single day since September 11, we've made ourselves safer, stronger and more secure, ... We still have a lot of work left to do. We're making progress every day.

As the world community combats terrorism ... you're going to see more and more countries going to a form of biometric identification to confirm identities,

do all we can to honor those who rose up with resolve to defeat evil.

And they are constantly evaluating procedures, both in the United States and elsewhere, to find gaps in our security posture that could be exploited.

Everything we do is designed to keep planes flying, bring loved ones closer, enable sports fans to gather, help businesses stay open; in other words, to keep the country moving,

These credible sources, ... suggest the possibility of attacks against the homeland around the holiday season and beyond.

The tapes are new, the threat is not,

Sometimes people confuse the notion that you're going to compromise sovereignty with collaboration.

Protecting this information is critically important. Shut them down and you shut down America as we know it,

Our approach at this point is to think big but begin implementing on a small scale, ... We want to get it right.

Some people have questioned, 'well, you put us on a general alert a couple of weeks ago and nothing happened,' ... This war on terrorism is going to continue for an indefinite period of time, and from time to time we may issue the same general alert again.

compared to previous threat reporting, these intelligence reports have provided a level of detail that is very specific.

An emergency is not the time to plan; it's the time to react, so be informed, ... The actions you would take in a conventional attack may be counterproductive if you took them in response to a different kind of attack.

Anybody that's spent any time combating terrorists ... will tell you that being old doesn't necessarily mean being irrelevant, ... Good intelligence can be appropriate, no matter how old it is.

are the result of offensive intelligence and military operations overseas, as well as strong partnerships with our allies around the world, such as Pakistan.

The bottom line is they were going after a national icon, and if you struck one or the other, the horror, the death and destruction, coupled with the notion of vulnerability to either the executive or legislative branch, would have accomplished their means of adding another level of anxiety or fear in this country.

The bottom line is that homeland security is not about one department, one level of government or one organization, ... It is a national call to action, a philosophy of shared responsibility, shared accountability, and shared leadership.

a very unfortunate characterization of the work that people are doing.

As of today, we now have full nationwide connectivity to the Homeland Security Operations Center, a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week nerve center for homeland security information and incident management,

that those who would do us harm may choose that date or any time around the commemorative period to do us harm again.

That's nothing more than sharing some information that may be relevant to pilots and may be relevant to the law enforcement community. Nothing more, nothing less,

You might want to access those dollars as well, ... tap into this existing resource.

Your characterization of it as being a significantly different threat environment, based on what we historically have heard, is absolutely correct, ... So there certainly is a diminution, reduction in the amount of intelligence, and the decibel level is lower.