Janet Napolitano's Op-Ed: Preventing Terror Is a 'Shared Responsibility'

Benjamin F. Carlson Dec 30, 2009

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been playing damage control since she got slammed for repeatedly stating on Sunday talk shows that "the system worked" in dealing with the aftermath of Flight 253. Many pundits subsequently called for her firing, but President Obama stood behind her, and on Wednesday in USA Today, Napolitano gives a better-calibrated defense in an op-ed:

While we took swift action immediately following last week's incident at airports around the country and throughout the world, our defenses should never have allowed this individual to board a plane bound for the United States. The administration is determined to find and fix the vulnerabilities in our systems that allowed this breach to happen.

After outlining the new security screenings and technologies, she stresses that preventing attacks is everyone's duty:

This is a shared responsibility in which we all have a role to play -- from the traveling public alerting authorities when they see something suspicious to federal agencies working together to piece together clues to foil potential plots.

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Sources

We Will Fix Vulnerabilities, Janet Napolitano, USA Today

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Topics: National Security, Flight 253

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