Minutes after President Barack Obama cited systemic failures surrounding the Christmas Day attempt to attack an American airliner, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-8) called for a top to bottom review of Department of Homeland Security personnel.

“The solution to the homeland security problem we face today requires accountability and that starts at the top with Secretary Napolitano and goes all the way to our people on the ground like our airport screeners.  If people cannot live up to the expectations that the American people have for protecting the homeland then changes need to be made,” said Pascrell, a member of the Homeland Security Committee since its inception.

“The President said today that this was an unacceptable systematic failure and I could not agree with him more. This is now the second time in a few short months that we have failed to connect the dots regarding dangerous individuals, of whom we were already aware.  Once again, information sharing among our security agencies has proved to be the greatest vulnerability in our intelligence community. The attacks of 9/11 failed to be averted because of this issue and we created the Department of Homeland Security specifically to close these gaps in information sharing.  The Department was established more than six and a half years ago. It’s well past time that they get their house in order.  As an original member of the Homeland Security Committee I was sounding this alarm well during the Bush Administration and I continue to do so today.”

Pascrell also called for an end to politicking in the context of national security matters. 

“I was greatly disappointed by my Republican colleagues who tried to make political hay out of this near tragedy.  Homeland security must always be a bipartisan effort, and jockeying for political advantage is a distraction that only puts the American people at risk,” said Pascrell. 

Pascrell also cited his disapproval of U.S. Sen. James De Mint’s blocking of Erroll Southers as director of the Transportation Security Administration.   “The TSA has always suffered due to a lack of strong leadership and now Senator DeMint is blocking a highly qualified nominee strictly to fulfill a highly partisan political agenda.  I would hope that after this narrowly averted tragedy, Senator DeMint would put partisan politics aside for the sake of our nation's security,” concluded Pascrell.

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