Like all clich s, the phrase national security has lost some of its meaning through over-use. National security means preventing war or terrorism on American soil. The Founding Fathers saw national security as the very first duty of government. The Constitution makes it clear how important national security was to them. Likewise, the first duty listed for the President is to be commander in chief of the army and navy.
National security is a very serious matter.
When we fail to maintain it, people die. That is why I and so many other Members of Congress were outraged at reports that the Department of Energy had yet again permitted a serious security breach at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. A pair of computer hard drives disappeared on May 7, but were not reported missing for three weeks. Then, after turning the lab upside down for two weeks, the drives were found behind a photocopier in the room next to the one from which they had disappeared. It was not the hard drives themselves, of course, that caused concern.