Homeland Security

HOMELAND SECURITY
    
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, my reason for coming to the Chamber today is similar to those of many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle. We are discussing what we hope the President will speak about tonight, what we want him to speak about, what we expect him to speak about.
    
Some of my colleagues have talked about areas such as the economy, the environment, education, and health care. I am going to address the issue of homeland security because, as much as we do overseas, we have to make sure our homeland is secure as well.
    
If, God willing, we were able to just eliminate all of al-Qaida and all of Saddam and his supporters, we would still face a danger from terrorism. Terrorists can strike almost at will in different ways, and our country is not yet secure against them, although I will say we have made some progress, particularly in the areas of air safety and in bioterrorism, since 9/11.
    
But we have so much more to do. What worries me is that the focus of this administration is almost exclusively on fighting the war on terrorism overseas. To beat the terrorists we need a one-two punch—one, fighting that war overseas, dealing with terrorism overseas; but, two, making our homeland more secure. And there seems to be a rather quaint and quirky notion among many of those in the administration that we can successfully fight the war here at home without spending a nickel. That is just wrong.
    
The bottom line is if someone were to say to the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, go fight the war in Iraq without any new resources, without any new dollars, he would say: I can't. But that is basically what we are saying to Mr. Tom Ridge and those who work under him.
    
Time and time again, when Members on both sides of the aisle have done a lot of research and proposed measures that would increase our security here at home, we are told: Well, that's a good idea, but we can't spend any money on it.
    
That just cannot be. There are so many areas where we lie naked, possible prey, God forbid, to terrorists.
    
Take our ports. We are far, far behind where we should be in monitoring what comes in on our ships. As we all know, those ships could be filled with deadly devices.
    
Take our borders. On the northern border, my State has a long and peaceful border with Canada. But, right now, if we pass the budget that was passed in the Senate, there will be fewer Customs inspectors on that northern border than there were on 9/11.
    
As to the FBI, this new budget that we passed, unfortunately, cuts the number of FBI agents. While the counterterrorism parts of the FBI are increasing, all the other parts are decreasing. It makes no sense to say we are going to make our citizens more secure from a foreign threat and leave them prey to a domestic threat. Bank robberies in my community are going up. It seems logical to assume that one of the reasons for that is that the FBI is not able to do its function under the strained budget that we have given it—to do both functions: fighting terrorism and fighting crime here at home.
    
As to cyberterrorism, unfortunately, Richard Clark, a brilliant man—the administration's point man on cyber-security—is leaving. But I am sure, as he has told many of you, we are again doing virtually nothing to make ourselves more secure from a deadly virus that might invade one of the very important technological systems that secure our country. And the list goes on and on and on.
    
As to truck safety, trucks that carry hazardous material, Brazil is doing a far better job in dealing with terrorism there than we are, even though they have not been the focus of terrorist attacks.
    
As to the rails, in my City of New York, Penn Station has a 1½-mile tunnel that has no egress. God forbid if something terrible happened there. What we have to do is look at all of our weak pressure points in terms of where terrorists would strike and strengthen them.
    
But this administration, in part because they do not want to spend the dollars necessary—as eager as they are to spend the dollars overseas that are necessary—is not doing the job.
    
So today we are going to look, as the President speaks, as to what specifically he is going to do to bolster our case in terms of homeland security. We are going to see if the promise that was made—for instance, in the USA Patriot Act, that we triple the number of Border Patrol and Customs agents and immigration authorities at the northern border—will be fulfilled.
    
We are going to look and see if there are the dollars necessary to update the INS computers, which are notoriously bad, so terrorists cannot slip into the country, and the FBI computers that, again, were so bad that all the signals we had about a plot that was hatched for 9/11 were missed, mainly because the FBI computers were less sophisticated, frankly, than the one my eighth grade, 14-year-old daughter has at our home.
    
The list goes on and on. And no one expects this administration will clean up every single problem we have in 6 months. But in terms of effort, in terms of focus, in terms of allocation of resources, they are woefully behind.
    
My good colleague from West Virginia, who has done so much to lead this fight, made a very good point on the homeland security bill. That bill, as you all know, rearranged agencies but did not change what happens within them.
    
Rearranging agencies does not change things. Moving the Coast Guard over to this new agency is not going to help it patrol 200 miles off the coast as it must do in our post 9/11 world.
    
When our President tonight gives his speech, we are all going to be looking to see what specifically he will say and what resources he will devote to protect our domestic security. Up until now the administration's voice has been all too quiet and all too silent. We hope tonight's speech indicates a large change.