Protect America, Safeguard Civil Liberties, Kean Tells Drew U. Forum

Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, who led the federal investigation into the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, told a forum Tuesday night that a balance must be struck between protecting lives and preserving civil liberties.

Kean, a Republican who was Drew's president from 1990 to 2005, expressed disappointment that President Barack Obama had yet to name appointments to a civil liberties board recommended by Kean's 9/11 Commission and later enacted by Congress.

The purpose of the board, Kean said, is to offer a counterpoint to any security-themed legislation or directives that might be too burdensome or infringe upon the rights of Americans.

"We are, and always will be, in a fight for our principles — and our first responsibility is to live by them," Kean said in his evening speech at Baldwin Gymnasium.

Kean drew a warm reception from the audience at his former campus, though two audience members posed critical questions about the 9/11 Commission — with one suggesting it was little more than a rubber stamp for former President George W. Bush's administration.

Kean countered that the commission did a thorough, independent review that involved sifting through reams of documents that, he asserted, remain needlessly classified in many cases.

He began his speech by recounting the personal impact 9/11 had on him. Kean said he sat on the board of directors of a company which lost around 70 employees in the attacks. He recalled a priest he knew who conducted seven funerals in a single day.

"If you lived in this area, you knew somebody who died," said Kean, who lives in Bedminster.

He was unsparing in his criticism of the homeland security mistakes, over the course of several years, leading up to the attacks.

"It was a failure of government, under two presidents, to defend us against this threat," said Kean in an indirect allusion to former President Bill Clinton, who left office eight months before 9/11, and Bush.

Border security and other reforms enacted in the decade since 9/11, Kean said, had effectively eliminated the ability of al Qaeda to launch anything on the scale of the coordinated attacks from a decade ago on New York City and Washington.

Kean said, however, that a sizeable threat remains from so-called lone wolf sympathizers, such as shoe bomber Richard Reid's unsuccessful attempt to bring down a jetliner, and that al Qaeda is refining its strategy.

"What they've decided to do is recruit the non-traditional terrorist. The most dangerous of these are American citizens," he said, referring to Internet-based recruitment campaigns as a source of concern.

Drew's president, Robert Weisbuch, introduced Kean and said the former governor — the first speaker in the university's 2011-12 forum series — was an ideal choice to lead off since the series this year will be emphasizing foreign affairs. Pervez Musharraf, former president of Pakistan, will speak in November and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will appear in April.

Weisbuch, following a series of laudatory remarks, praised Kean's "leadership of the most important commission, perhaps, in American history."

"I don't deserve that introduction," Kean followed up with a smile, "but I enjoyed every minute of it."