Washington (CNN) New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie stressed Monday the need for increased funding and support to beef up the U.S.'s intelligence capabilities to prevent terror attacks, putting it this way: "You can't enjoy your civil liberties if you're in a coffin."

Christie's comments came as lawmakers on Capitol Hill are raising civil liberties and national security concerns as provisions of the Patriot Act authorizing bulk data collection on millions of Americans are set to expire at the end of the month.

And Christie, who is considering running for the Republican presidential nomination, is clearly aligned with the national security hawks loathe to lose any intelligence tools.

"We have taken for granted, everybody, nearly 14 years of not attack in this country on a major scale. And we should not take that for granted," Christie told an audience at a town hall forum in New Hampshire. "The thing that's demoralizing to me is that there are I think so many sectors in our country who haven't forgotten 9/11. Everyone will remember 9/11, but have forgotten what 9/11 felt like."

And while "all these people are talking about liberty," Christie said the 9/11 terror attacks truly stole Americans' liberty.

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