BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - James B. Comey, by the very nature of his job as head of the FBI, worries most about keeping the promise his position inherently makes to America.

Not just from the likes of al-Qaida. But from those who would be al-Qaida.

"Some wing-nut can be in their pajamas anywhere in the U.S. on a computer convincing themselves they need to engage in this misguided Jihad," Comey said in Birmingham Tuesday.

That's why the FBI and others must focus so fiercely upon terrorism, he said. "This isn't about hysteria,'' he said. "This is about we want to make sure we have the trip bars in place that if we see something we can respond right way."

Comey, sworn in Sept. 4, 2013, as the FBI's seventh, and tallest (6-feet, 8-inches) director, is making routine visits to FBI offices around the country. Birmingham is one of 56 FBI field offices in the United States. The other Alabama FBI field office is in Mobile.

In a visit surrounded by tight security - reporters were patted down and whisked into Birmingham's FBI headquarters via an underground, caged entrance - Comey touched on everything from terrorism to cybercrime and even Alabama and Auburn football. "I know it's been both a good football season here, and not so good,'' he said. As a New York Giants fan, Comey pointed out that, obviously, it could be worse.

National security, Comey said, is his primary focus. "The first promise the FBI has made the American people is that we will do everything in our power to keep the American people safe from terrorist attacks,'' he said. "That's our No. 1 priority, and it's going to remain our No. 1 priority."

He said he worries about terrorist threats in two different ways. The first he calls the metastasizing al-Qaida. "We as a country have been very successful against the core of al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan by taking the fight to that enemy,'' he said. "While we've had success there, we've seen in the ungoverned spaces in the Middle East and North Africa a resurgence of al-Qaida affiliates. That's what I mean by a metastasizing threat that remains a big challenge. There are groups through the Middle East and North Africa who are bent on getting past our defenses and into the United States to hurt innocent people."

Homegrown, violent extremists are his second worry, he said. "I don't like the term "lone wolf" because I think it conveys a sense of dignity that these characters don't deserve,'' he said.

Those people, he said, are able to radicalize themselves and convince themselves they need to go on some misguided Jihad and hurt innocent people in the United States. "It's a worry because the information they use to radicalize themselves is so readily available on the internet, and it's a worry because they are hard to spot. They can be in their basement radicalizing themselves before they walk out and do some harm, and we have very little time to spot them."

One of the biggest challenges faced by the FBI is "all matters cyber." "People talk about cyber as if it's a single thing,'' he said. "It's actually a way in which bad people come at us.

"All of us, especially in the United States, have connected our lives to the internet because it is where our money is, where our children are, our social lives are, its where everything is and it's where bad people come. It's where fraudsters come for our money, it's where child exploiters come to try to take advantage of the most vulnerable, it's where nation states come to try and steal our secrets, its' where terrorists come to try to damage our infrastructure so it touches everything I'm responsible for at the FBI," he said. "Our big challenge is getting the resources, the partnerships, making sure we're trained and deployed in the right way to respond to that threat."

While in Birmingham Tuesday, Comey met with law-enforcement leaders from throughout Jefferson and Shelby counties. The meeting, he said, "confirmed what I knew from afar and that is we have a fired-up law-enforcement community here in Birmingham and throughout the state of Alabama,'' he said. "People are doing work on a whole lot of fronts to protect people, rescue the innocent and keep our country safe.

"We can't do what the American people need us to do without them. It is the task forces, the joint effort we take into that fight that makes us good,'' he said. He used a football analogy to drive home the point.

"We're a lot like a free safety in football. Our job is what do the primary defenders need us to do? Where do they need support? Where do they need resources? Find those gaps in the line that they're worried about and help them plug those. Sometimes that's run support; sometimes that's a long pass; sometimes it's a mid-range, but my job is work with these folks to keep the American people safe,'' he said. "A single stick is broken but a bunch of sticks is impossible to break."

Comey also responded to questions of public concerns. Earlier this month, media reports buzzed that the FBI had removed "law enforcement" from its mission statement. It's been no secret that since 9/11, the FBI has prioritized national security, but Comey on Tuesday chuckled at the notion that they were no longer in the policing business.

The explanation, he said, is simple. Someone in the agency's office crossed out the word "criminal investigative agency" on a Freedom of Information Act form, a move that was in error and was misunderstood. "It got played in media outlets as we changed our mission,'' Comey said. " No, it means someone eight levels down from me changed a form and as soon as I found out about it, I changed it back. Now it says what we are: A national security and law-enforcement agency.

Asked if the government is spying on people, Comey said no. Well, not the average person anyway.

"Now if you're involved in one of the things I'm worried about, if you're trafficking drugs, if you're involved in violent crime, if you're a terrorist or spy, I would like to be spying on you because I need to know what you're doing,'' he said. "That's our business. If we have probable cause that someone is engaged in criminal activity, we get a court order to be able to intercept communications. That's the FBI's role in surveillance that people talk about."