Michael Chertoff
Michael Chertoff
Michael Chertoffis an American attorney who was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security under Presidents George W. Bush andBarack Obama, and co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act. He previously served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as a federal prosecutor, and as Assistant U.S. Attorney General. He succeeded Tom Ridge as United States Secretary of Homeland Security on February 15, 2005...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
Date of Birth28 November 1953
CountryUnited States of America
To be sure sometimes we differ, ... but the point is not that one society values privacy more than the other ... but the application of those values.
We are not going to be able to have people sitting in houses in the city of New Orleans for weeks and months while we de-water and clean this city,
When we remove the water from New Orleans, we're going to uncover people who died hiding in houses, who got caught by the flood, people whose remains will be found in the street, ... It is going to be about as ugly a scene as you can imagine.
The department intends to build an integrated border security system.
We have made a lot of progress in the first year of Community Shield.
Our role is not to repair the dikes. Our role is to step in if something happens.
As we improve security, we ought to have the ability to begin to manage the risk by looking to communities that haven't gotten the help.
As you know, the president has established the 'White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.' He will meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will assist the administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina,
absolutely an appropriate response while this and other intelligence information continued to be examined and analyzed.
As long as the president wants me to continue to do that work and thinks I can make a contribution, I'm going to stay at my post.
That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight,
That's why we have asked our procurement people to look hard when the invoices come in for contracts, to make sure these are fair and reasonable prices and to make necessary adjustments to assure that there is appropriate performance and that the public is getting value for its money.
This practice acts as an enticement for additional border crossers, ... It's unacceptable.
As far as my agency is concerned, port security really rests principally with the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection.