[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 27264-27265]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         OVERREACTING TO AN OVEREXAGGERATED THREAT OF TERRORISM

  (Mr. DUNCAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, we all want to do what we should to fight 
terrorism, but the Federal Government has to do many other things, too. 
The Wall Street Journal editorial said: ``We would like to suggest a 
new post-September 11 rule for Congress. Any bill with the words 
``security'' in it should get double the public scrutiny and maybe four 
times the normal wait, lest all kinds of bad legislation become law 
under the phony guise of fighting terrorism.''
  More significantly, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff 
testified in front of a congressional committee: ``We should not let an 
overexaggerated threat of terrorism drive us crazy, into bankruptcy, 
trying to defend against every conceivable threat.'' He went on to say: 
``We do have limits, and we do have choices to make. We don't want to 
break the very systems we're trying to protect. We don't want to 
destroy our way of life

[[Page 27265]]

trying to save it. We don't want to undercut our economy trying to 
protect our economy, and we don't want to destroy our civil liberties 
and our freedoms in order to make ourselves safer.''

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