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
The intelligence that we've received over the past several weeks is ... a series of general non-specific threats against the United States.
compared to previous threat reporting, these intelligence reports have provided a level of detail that is very specific.
Your characterization of it as being a significantly different threat environment, based on what we historically have heard, is absolutely correct, ... So there certainly is a diminution, reduction in the amount of intelligence, and the decibel level is lower.
The tapes are new, the threat is not,
For every level of threat there will be a level of preparedness, ... It is a system that is equal to the threat.
In the meantime, as on the other occasions when the national threat level has been increased, we encourage members of the public to continue their daily work, family and leisure activities with a heightened awareness,
We are confident they are taking this threat seriously,
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,
Today the United States government raised the national threat level.
We could go back over the past two years and pick out threat reports of pretty much the same substance,
We'll be ready to answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people.
Effective firefighters in every community are critical to America's homeland security, ... We want to help the fire service to move quickly to develop and acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and equipment to respond to all emergencies, large and small.
The airlines and aviation today are far better prepared,
I'm not sure we're ever going to be able to say that because we raised it from Yellow to Orange or because we modified, changed or enhanced security at this facility, at this bridge, at this tunnel, that it deterred a terrorist from acting,