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Increased and better screening for explosives is necessary - and Congress should fund it and TSA should implement it as quickly as possible - however that screening doesn't reduce the risk posed by a trained terrorist with an unconventional weapon.

Would-be terrorists cannot so much as board a plane without a thorough screening, yet we give them nearly unfettered access to very dangerous weapons.

Well, your premise is correct, that we have to first guard against those who have an affiliation with terrorists and a connection, and so we have watch lists and systems that can make that connection.

And so we try to address those concerns in every way possible, recognizing, again, in the final analysis, everybody on that flight wants to be assured with the highest level of confidence that everybody else on that flight has been properly screened, and including me and you and everybody.

We need to use the benefit of our law enforcement people across this country, combined with our intelligence people across this country. We need to use our technological advantages, because what we've warned of is an international guerrilla movement that threatens this country.

Now we are using the body scanner to scan the pilots. They became the dangerous people of this country?

There's still a lot of things you can legitimately do to make America safe through electronic surveillance.

I continue to be a strong believer in the life-saving importance of early detection, and I encourage everyone to be proactive about their preventive screenings.

The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.

I believe the public's confidence would be increased if the federal government took over the functions of airport security screening for all passengers.