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"We need to be more proactive and not reactive. The fact that the State Department issued a cable stating Abdulmutallab had been in contact with extremists in Yemen and did not act upon it by revoking his visa was an absolute failure. I am encouraged to see that the President has now directed the State Department to review its processes for issuing and revoking visas. Revoking Abdulamutallab’s visa and placing him on the no fly list would have prevented him from carrying out his attack. 300 people bound for Detroit are alive today by sheer luck. The threat’s still out there.
"We are dealing with a lack of information sharing on two fronts: within our intelligence community, and between the administration and Congress. It is unacceptable that our intelligence community had information that would have allowed us to disrupt the Christmas Day attack before it materialized, but failed to act on it. If this resulted from a procedural flaw we must correct it. If it is human error we must hold the appropriate individuals accountable.
I commend the President's selection of Howard Schmidt as Cybersecurity Coordinator. Schmidt's experience protecting high profile private sector networks combined with his extensive government and defense background is the right combination to ensure the nation's critical infrastructure is secure. I look forward to working with him and hope this position gives him the authority he needs to coordinate across all of the agencies involved.