December 10, 2004
After a second lame duck session Congress has passed an intelligence reform measure designed to make us safer.
Do you feel any more safe?
I don't.
What is being created is a giant new bureaucracy with more government officials on top and not enough people who can speak the language and infiltrate the groups that mean to kill more of us.
A major problem - illegal immigration - is left out of this bill with promises from the white house and the Republican congressional leadership it will be addressed in the next Congress.
My concern is that congress has created one more government agency with a national intelligence director whose staff will be a rival to the CIA, FBI and other intelligence gathering operations.
It will never go away, even if the terror threat goes away.
No government agency ever does.
Is this new agency going to be able to stop homicide bombers?
We don't even know who or where they are.
More importantly, we are unwilling to do what is necessary to find them here and to stop them from getting here in the first place.
In New York, I'm Cal Tomas.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C. Watch his television show, After Hours with Cal Thomas, on the Fox News Channel, Saturdays at 11 p.m. Eastern Time.
