Today I want to talk about homeland security. First, I will talk about the serious shortcomings in the administration's response. Then I will talk about the six bills I've introduced in this Congress to improve our homeland security, including a bill today to overhaul the way we do intelligence work here at home.

The first responsibility of any government is to protect the security of its people. Yet we live in a time when Americans feel extraordinary insecurity. We're at an elevated level of threat warning. The CIA Director says al Qaeda is "resuming the offensive." The FBI director says there are "al Qaeda cells in the United States that we have not yet been able to identify." In other words, al Qaeda cells are operating here, but we don't know who they are, where they are, or what they're doing.

Americans are buying plastic sheeting and duct tape in record amounts. While they do everything they can to protect themselves, they have a right to know that we in government are doing everything we can to protect themtheir homes, their families, their kids.

Now, this is a dangerous time, but a dangerous time calls for an honest response. This president is failing the test on homeland security. Homeland security has yielded to chemical companies that are holding back commonsense steps to secure chemical plants against horrific explosions. Homeland security is yielding to bureaucratic inertia that is defending old and outworn ways of fighting terror.

Today there are huge holes in our borders; one guard for every 5 miles on the Canadian border. There are huge holes at our ports; we are still inspecting only a fraction of all shipments into the United States, shipments that could carry nuclear or biological weapons. There are huge holes in our hometowns; cops and firefighters do not have the equipment or the training that they need.

For all these holes, this president has vetoed billions for homeland security, he is withholding funds that first responders need today, and he has proposed funding homeland security this year at a level that even Republican experts like Warren Rudman say is totally inadequate.

We cannot cover the holes in our borders with plastic sheeting. Our cops and firefighters need reinforcements and new gear, not canned goods.

In 2000, the president's team talked about the dangers of a hollow military. At a time when the greatest dangers we face are here at home, this administration risks creating a hollow homeland defense.

This is happening for a very simple reason. The bare minimum of homeland security improvements we need$10 billion more this yearcosts less than half of President Bush's tax cut just for 226,000 millionaires.

Well, I believe it is time to say to this president: Mr. President, please put our security first. Please set aside $20 billion in tax breaks for 226,000 millionaires, and put homeland security for 290 million Americans first.

Let me talk a little bit about my work on homeland security since Congress came back into session. Back in December, I laid out a comprehensive plan for strengthening our domestic security, from stopping ID fraud to sharing more information with local police to improving our cyber security. In the six weeks Congress has been in session so far, I have introduced six bills to strengthen our homeland security. Each of these bills would make a concrete, tangible difference in people's lives.

Two bills are focused on empowering people to play a greater role in homeland security.

1.) Until this week, most Americans have no better idea how to respond to a terrorist attack than on September 11. Now the administration has begun giving out useful information, but we still don't have enough. We are not being told, for example, how to respond to chemical or biological attacks. In addition, there is still a serious question whether people will get the information they need when they need it, particularly when they are sleeping. Obviously TV and radio won't help if you're asleep. So I have a bill, which I wrote with Fritz Hollings, that will create an emergency warning system to reach everyone using new technology, for example special phone rings that could wake people.

2.) We want to encourage more people to contribute. People want to serve, but they feel like they haven't been asked. We should ask. One way is through the neighborhood watch program. Neighborhood watches help prevent both terrorism and ordinary crime. They also unite people of different ages and backgrounds within the community in common work. We're going to increase support for these, encourage folks to get involved, with the goalthe realistic goalof tripling the number of neighborhood watches.

Next, I've introduced two bills focused on hardening vulnerable targetsin other words, taking those targets we know terrorists want to attack, and transforming them so they will be less vulnerable.

3.) One bill is to do research to enhance building security, to improve the quality of private security guards and make buildings more resistant to attack. We know that at the Oklahoma City bombing, 85% of the lives might have been saved if the building had been built with better materials, in a better way. We're still learning about the World Trade Center collapse. We know we need better construction and better security around buildings.

4.) A fourth bill would require the government to improve its cyber security. A few weeks ago, we had an attack that crippled a lot of government computer systems. There are simple things we could be doing to block computer attacks that we are not doing, like changing passwords regularly and "patching" holes in the systems. We'd make that happen.

Fifth, I've introduced a bill to help local law enforcement by requiring the government to give security clearances to more police officers, firefighters, and health officials. They need information to keep us safe, but too often they aren't getting it. This bill would help make sure they do.

Finally, there is the bill I've introduced today, and that I want to talk about in some detail. This bill will make fundamental changes in the way we protect Americans against international terrorists operating within our borders. This bill takes away from the FBI the responsibility to collect intelligence on foreign terrorists groups within the United States. And this bill gives that responsibility to a new Homeland Intelligence Agency. I believe this agency will do a better job protecting our safety and our basic freedoms. Let me briefly explain why.

There is no question that the FBI is full of dedicated professionals who are patriots, who serve their country with courage and conviction, who do all of us proud.

But there is also no question that the FBI made many serious mistakes before September 11. There was the Phoenix Memorandum, a memorandum about suspicious behavior at flight schools that the FBI did not follow up on. There was the Moussaoui case, where the FBI had in its possession a computer full of critical information, yet did not access the information there. There were even two hijackers who the FBI knew were threats but did not track and stop.

It's true all this was before September 11. The other day, Director Mueller told me that my criticisms understated the extent of the FBI's reforms. Well, I respect Director Mueller, and I look forward to continuing to talk with him about FBI reform. I have only the best wishes for his reform efforts.

At the same time, it would be hard to understate the seriousness of the problems we have seen.

This is not just my view; it is the view of every objective panel to look at this issue. These panels have raised serious questions about the FBI's response to terrorism, and in some instances, about the FBI's capacity to respond to terrorism:

The Markle Task Force commented: "...there is a resistance ingrained in the FBI ranks to sharing counter-terrorism information...the FBI has not prioritized intelligence analysis in the areas of counter-terrorism."

The Joint Congressional Inquiry noted: The FBI has a "history of repeated shortcomings within its current responsibility for domestic intelligence..."

The Brookings Institution went further, stating that "there are strong reasons to question whether the FBI is the right agency to conduct domestic intelligence collection and analysis."

Finally, the Gilmore Commission recently said: "the Bureau's long standing tradition and organizational culture persuade us that, even with the best of intentions, the FBI cannot soon be made over into an organization dedicated to detecting and preventing attacks rather than one dedicated to punishing them."

I believe the Gilmore Commission reached the right conclusion.

Part of the problem is bureaucratic resistance at the FBI. The FBI is full of superb public servants, but the reality is that the FBI is also a bureaucracy, and it is the nature of a bureaucracy to resist change. That's just the reality. It was only in November that the New York Times reported the FBI's number 2 official was "amazed and astounded" by the FBI's sluggish response to the terrorist threat.

Beyond the problem of bureaucratic resistance, there is a more fundamental problem with the FBI. That problem is the conflict at the base of the FBI's mission, which is a conflict between law enforcement and intelligence. These are fundamentally different functions.

Law enforcement is about building criminal cases and putting people in jail. Intelligence isn't about building a case; it's about gathering information and putting it together into a bigger picture.

The FBI has never been built for intelligence. It has always been an agency that hires people who want to be law enforcement officers, trains them to be law enforcement officers, and promotes them for succeeding as law enforcement officers. Cases have been run by field offices with little of the central coordination that is essential to combat national networks of terrorists. The FBI has regularly kept intelligence within the agency's walls rather than sharing it with other key players.

Now, the FBI says all this is changing. But with all due respect, the FBI's reforms are too little and too late. They are not enough, and because of the nature of the FBI, they cannot ever be enough.

That is why I propose today to create a Homeland Intelligence Agency, one that would be responsible for collecting foreign intelligence inside the United States, analyzing that intelligence, and getting it to the policymakers or first responders who need it. This entity isn't in the new Department of Homeland Security. It isn't in the newly announced "Terrorist Threat Integration Center." That's just about analysis. This is about collection.

I believe this agency will do a better job fighting terrorism because its sole focus will be intelligence gathering. The inherent conflict between law enforcement and intelligence will not get in the way of its work.

I also believe it will do a better job protecting our civil liberties. While we will not give the new agency any new authorities, we will place new checks on its ability to collect information about innocent people. Time and again, we have seen this administration overreach when it comes to civil liberties. That should stop, and this proposal will help stop it. We will require judicial approval before the most secretive and invasive investigations of religious and political groups. We will require greater public reporting and more internal auditing. We will establish a new and independent office of civil liberties within the new agency that is dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights of innocent Americans. So at the end of the day, we will help to fulfill America's promise -- that we are safe and free.

I think this bill is an important step to making America safer, and I look forward to working on it with colleagues on both sides of the aisle.