Well, you know, the violence is mostly in Mexico itself, at least the violence that people are worried about. And so we want to make sure that violence does not spill over into our communities that are along the border.

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

We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not nor will we ever monitor ideology or political beliefs. We take seriously our responsibility to protect civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources.

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

It would be unwise to say the least, irresponsible of us at the TSA, at the Homeland Security Department not to evolve our technology to match the changing threat environment that we inhabit.

It drove home, personally, the value of early detection and education and intervention.

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).