Tom Ridge
Tom Ridge
Thomas Joseph "Tom" Ridgeis an American politician who served as the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security from 2001 to 2003, and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2003 to 2005. Prior to this, Ridge was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 1995 and the 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2001. He is a member of the Republican Party...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth26 August 1945
CityMunhall, PA
CountryUnited States of America
Protecting this information is critically important. Shut them down and you shut down America as we know it,
We'll want them to pull in all that information and sort it out between rumor and suspicion and fact and speculation and misinformation and do an assessment, do an analysis and then communicate it -- if it's a real threat -- communicate that to state and local governments,
Celebrity or unknown, our job is to act on information that others have given us,
we're concerned about targets beyond these and are working to get more information about them.
There are a lot of us who think that some of the information we share with the public probably should be restricted in some fashion, ... We may have to take a look at these kinds of issues from a different perspective because of the tragedy of September 11.
with as much information as possible as quickly as possible.
We had specific information that needed to be acted upon relative to the Air France flights.
We got very specific information regarding when and what flights. It didn't quite have the specificity with regard to the nature of the attack, but there was certainly enough credibility associated with the when and the where, the date and the flight
As of today, we now have full nationwide connectivity to the Homeland Security Operations Center, a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week nerve center for homeland security information and incident management,
That's nothing more than sharing some information that may be relevant to pilots and may be relevant to the law enforcement community. Nothing more, nothing less,
These are pieces of information that we could trace comfortably to sources we deem to be credible.
And all 50 states, through our Homeland Security Information Network, are connected to it. This is a goal we've reached five months ahead of schedule.
We do not know how long it will take to defeat the scourge of terrorism or how many Americans will give their lives for the cause. But we do know one thing with absolute certainty: The passengers and crew of Flight 93 won the first battle,
These credible sources, ... suggest the possibility of attacks against the homeland around the holiday season and beyond.