Michael Chertoff famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Even the kinds of ingredients you can find in your own kitchen can be used to make bombs. So the problem is with the people and not with the tools.
-- Michael Chertoff

#People #Kitchen #Tools
I'm sometimes asked why it is that for 30 years we seem to have trouble in the United States enforcing the rules against illegal immigration, and I'll tell you what the answer is. The answer is that when the television cameras turn off and the spotlight moves to something else, there are a host of interest groups and advocacy groups who work very, very hard to make it difficult to enforce these rules. I'm not commenting adversely on their motivation, but I can tell you the effect of all of this is to wear down the ability of an agency to enforce the law....
-- Michael Chertoff

#Motivation #Moving #Agency
The Department of Defense took 40 years to get where it got.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Years #Defense
The larger point is this: We've invested over half a billion dollars in New York since this department was stood up. We've given New York more money, by more than double, than any other city in the country.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Country #New York #Cities
So that's why I said, if you look at the average, you would see the money New York got this year was in line with the average across the prior three years and substantially more, by a country mile, than the money given to any other city.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Country #New York #Average
First, we did rank everybody by risk, and New York comes out number one.
-- Michael Chertoff

#New York #Numbers #Risk
And it seems to me correct then, and I think it's correct now, that job one is get the planning done, make sure the buses are there. When that's done, it's completely appropriate to go around and tour around and look at the damage.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Jobs #Thinking #Done
The second thing we did was said, OK, we've now identified the risk, but what do you want to do with the money? Because it's not enough to have risk; you've got to have a meaningful use for the money we give you.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Meaningful #Giving #Risk
I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Water #People #Conventions
And I have to say, I agree with some of the criticisms that some have made about that state program which allocates the grant money on a very rigid formula all across the country, with a certain percentage to each state.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Country #Criticism #Program
I think the idea that you can go this alone is - was a huge mistake. And unfortunately, there was a price paid in terms of suffering and pain for people in New Orleans.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Pain #Mistake #Thinking
We now have capabilities in science and technology that raise the very realistic possibility that a small group of terrorists could kill not only thousands of people, as they did on September 11th, but hundreds of thousands of people. And that has changed the dimension of the threat we face.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Technology #People #September 11
We don't really have the ability to enforce the law with respect to illegal work in this country in a way that's truly effective...We haven't been able to require every employer to enter a system in which they check the work status of their employees and determine whether they're legal, and without that, we don't really have the ability to enforce the law with respect to illegal work in this country in a way that's truly effective. And that would be the single greatest additional weapon we could use if we're serious about tackling this problem.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Country #Law #Would Be
So people have to decide. Do they want to have the security? Do they want to continue to plug the gap [in border security] that GAO has identified and recognize that there will be some costs to doing that? Or do we want to make sure that business isn't hampered and that people can move back and forth readily, and recognize that, if we don't put some barriers in place, we're going to wind up with dangerous people coming into the country?
-- Michael Chertoff

#Country #Moving #Wind
The fact that we have not had a terrorist attack in this country in the last six years is not a cause for complacency or a time to celebrate the end of the struggle. The threat is not going away. The enemy has not lost interest. ...Fundamentally, we're in a struggle about ideology. Terrorists want to remake the world in their own image and it is the image that is intolerant of the kinds of institutions that we cherish.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Country #Struggle #Years
There really is no vacation from the world in which we live.
-- Michael Chertoff

#Vacation #World #Terrorism

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