[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 39 (Monday, October 1, 2001)]
[Pages 1375-1377]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to Federal Bureau of Investigation Employees

September 25, 2001

    Thank you all. Thanks. It's been my honor to come over to thank 
everybody for their hard work. I know there's a lot of folks here at the 
FBI who are working long hours. People are away from their families more 
than they want. But my presence here should assure you that I recognize 
the important contribution you make and that the FBI and the wonderful 
men and women who work here are an incredibly important part of the army 
that is going to win the war on terrorism.
    You've got some pretty good generals here, starting with General 
Ashcroft, who is doing a fine job as the Attorney General of America. I 
told the country when I picked the man that you don't have to worry 
where he stands and the values he brings to the job. I'm proud of the 
service. And I appreciate so very much Larry, as well, coming up from 
Atlanta, Georgia, to serve our country.
    As you know, I made an important pick to head the agency. I picked a 
good, solid American, a man who has been under fire before and who 
doesn't flinch under fire this time around, either. And that's Bob 
Mueller. Thank you for your service.
    First, I--as I mentioned to many of your colleagues, we're facing a 
different kind of war than our country is used to; that 2 weeks ago 
there was an act of war declared on America. No one could have possibly 
dreamed that it would come in the way it did, and it shocked our Nation, 
of course.
    And we've had time to think about it here in the country, and we're 
angry. But we're also clear--we've got clear vision about what the 
country needs to do. This is a nation that has come together to defend 
our freedom and our way of life.
    I see things this way: The people who did this act on America and 
who may be planning further acts are evil people. They don't represent 
an ideology; they don't represent a legitimate political group of 
people. They're flat evil. That's all they can think about, is evil. And 
as a nation of good folks, we're going to hunt them down, and we're 
going to find them, and we will bring them to justice.
    Ours is a nation that does not seek revenge, but we do seek justice. 
And I don't care how long it takes to rout out terrorism, we're going to 
do it. We will take the time and effort and spend the resources 
necessary to not only find these who--these evildoers who did what they 
did to America on September the 11th; this is a larger campaign against 
anybody who hates freedom, anybody who can't stand what America and our 
allies and friends stand for.
    And so I'm here at the FBI to thank you for your work. Most of your 
job is to help us win the war here at home. Most of your job is to 
prevent something else from happening. And I know that hundreds of FBI 
agents and other employees of the agency are working long, long hours to 
do that. I was able to see the war rooms where information is being 
collected and analyzed and dispersed. I was able to see the consoles 
where people have been sitting at long hours,

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detailing every piece of information that is being gathered across the 
country. I know there are over 4,000 employees of the FBI working on not 
only gathering evidence for the particular actions that took place on 
September the 11th but running down every scrap of information that is 
being found all across our land and analyzing that information and 
preparing our great Nation to disrupt any action that may be being 
planned.
    There are some other things we can do in the country, and our 
Congress needs to work with us. And I believe--I had breakfast this 
morning with Republican and Democrat leaders, and I will tell you, the 
spirit on Capitol Hill is good for America. It's a united spirit, and I 
want to thank the leaders from both parties and both Houses for their 
willingness to listen to anybody who has got a good idea about how to 
fight terrorist activity in the country. And I believe the Attorney 
General has taken some good ideas to Capitol Hill, and I'd like to share 
some of them with you.
    First, what we've seen is these terrorists are very sophisticated, 
and so are their communications. They must--their calls must be 
penetrated when we feel there's a threat to America. We've got to know 
what's on their mind. And so, therefore, we must give the FBI the 
ability to track calls when they make calls from different phones, for 
example.
    Now, this is what we do for drug dealers and members of organized 
crime. And it seems like to make sense to me, if it's good enough for 
the FBI to use these techniques for facing down those threats to 
America, that now that we're at war, we ought to give the FBI the tools 
necessary to track down terrorists. And so I hope Congress will listen 
to the wisdom of the proposals that the Attorney General brought up, to 
give the tools necessary to our agents in the field to find those who 
may think they want to disrupt America again.
    We're asking Congress for the authority to hold suspected terrorists 
who are in the process of being deported, until they're deported. That 
seems to make sense--[laughter]--that if a suspected terrorist is 
detained, and our Nation has decided to deport the person, then they 
ought to be held in custody until the action actually takes place. We 
believe it's a necessary tool to make America a safe place.
    Now, this would of course be closely supervised by an immigration 
judge. Now, the only alternative is to let suspected terrorists loose in 
our country. I don't think anybody wants to do that. [Laughter] I 
certainly hope not.
    And we're asking for the authority to share information between 
intelligence operations and law enforcement, so we can direct the best 
of both in the critical effort. That, too, is a reasonable request to 
make of Congress.
    I want you to know that every one of the proposals we've made on 
Capitol Hill, carried by the Attorney General, has been carefully 
reviewed. They are measured requests; they are responsible requests; 
they are constitutional requests. Ours is a land that values the 
constitutional rights of every citizen, and we will honor those rights, 
of course.
    But we're at war, a war we're going to win. And in order to win the 
war, we must make sure that the law enforcement men and women have got 
the tools necessary, within the Constitution, to defeat the enemy.
    And there's going to be one other thing that's required to defeat 
the enemy, and that's the will and determination of the American people. 
I believe the evildoers miscalculated when they struck America. They 
thought we would shy away. They thought their threats could hold this 
Nation hostage. They must have felt like they could diminish our soul. 
But quite the opposite has taken place. They've strengthened the spirit 
of America. They have united the country. They have awoken a mighty 
nation that understands that freedom is under assault, a mighty nation 
that will not rest until those who think they can take freedom away from 
any citizen in the world are brought to justice.
    They've got a problem on their hands. We're going to find them. And 
if they're hiding, we're going to smoke them out. And we'll bring them 
to justice. And not only will we bring them to justice, we will bring 
those who harbor them, who hide them, who feed them, who encourage them, 
to justice.
    America is a nation built upon freedom and the principles of 
freedom, the values of freedom. And this is a nation that will not--will 
not--blink from the fight. This is a nation

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that will stand strong for the great values that have made us unique.
    I'm proud of the work of the FBI. I want to thank you all for your 
dedication. Stay at it. The Nation is counting on you. You're making a 
great, great contribution for the country.
    May God bless you all and your families, and may God continue to 
bless the United States of America.

Note: The President spoke at 2:37 p.m. in a conference room at the 
Operations Center at the FBI headquarters building. In his remarks, he 
referred to Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson.