Pull out the stops on U.S. intelligence

Be afraid, be very, very afraid, say the heads of our major intelligence agencies. Testifying before a Senate committee they said they are "certain" there will be another attempted terrorist attack on our soil within months.

So, what do they intend to do to foil such a plot, other than subjecting airline passengers to full body scans? If they had a plan, they didn't reveal it. They were too busy pointing the finger of blame at each other to provide any reassurance to the American public.

The intelligence chiefs cited al-Qaida and a growing cybersecurity threat as the biggest challenges to be addressed. Al-Qaida is "adapting methods to make their plots more difficult to detect." Gee, who could have predicted that? Did we think they would just keep doing the same thing until we finally caught on?

On the cybersecurity threat, they said, "sensitive information is stolen daily" from our computer networks and telecommunications systems. I understand that no security system is 100 percent secure, but we must commit sufficient resources to fund proactive enhancements to keep us a step ahead of the terrorists.

So, enough talk about changing the useless Crayola terror alert scale and other procedures that provide a false sense of security. If the threat to our country is as grave as portrayed, we must use every weapon at our disposal to protect ourselves. To do anything less is irresponsible.

Sheryl Jedlinski

Palatine