It's always been government's role to protect the security of the nation. And cyber-attacks is a security issue, from our perspective. And it's a security issue of particular concern with respect to the nation's core critical infrastructure, the infrastructure everyone relies on, the energy sector, the telecommunications sector, the banking sector.

The last thing the Department of Homeland Security is about is infringing on anybody's constitutionally protected rights.

Now, a lot of what we are doing right now, quite frankly, is because of what happened on Christmas. Many of the things were kind of in the works. We were already planning, for example, the purchase and deployment of advanced imaging technology. You call them body scanners. We call them AITs (Advanced Imaging Technologies).

I've appointed a task force to take a fresh look at the color-code system and whether we should retain it, change it or scrap it.

One of the most striking elements of today's threat picture is that plots to attack America increasingly involve American residents and citizens.

Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there.

What we're going to do with cyber-attacks - and we have already actually started - we started well before the executive order actually was issued - is working with the private sector, determine how best to share information, because, you know, we can't help until we know that there has actually been an attempted intrusion or attack. Information-sharing piece is very important.