"Families and businesses need to feel secure," Matheson said.

"Utahns deserve to have confidence that their state can anticipate, prevent and, when necessary, respond to acts of terrorism."

The proposed council would be composed of representatives from federal, state and local government, law enforcement, higher education and private businesses.

Matheson said the state has been doing a good job on homeland security, but can do even better with increased collaboration.

"The coordination has been quite good up to this point. This is the next level it needs to go to," Matheson said, citing Utah's "head start" from successful security during the 2002 Winter Olympics.

The Democrat, a former U.S. Attorney for Utah who served on the U.S. Attorney General's Advisory Subcommittee on Domestic Terrorism, said one criticism of past Utah administrations was the debacle involving the so-called MATRIX multistate terrorism and crime intelligence database.

"You have to be sensitive to constitutional and privacy rights," said Matheson. "Where we went wrong before was you need to have a full discussion and disclosure. That was a lesson learned and I take it very seriously."

-Dan Harrie