Episode Recording -- "9/11 and United States national security"

1.10 - 3.47:  privacy and safety, and how they have changed as a result of mass surveillance programs

• After the 9/11 attacks, I realized how much privacy and safety in the U.S. had been reshaped by mass surveillance, especially through the Patriot Act. This legislation gave government agencies much broader power to monitor phone and internet communications—even when there wasn’t clear evidence of terrorist activity. While the intention was to prevent future attacks, I started to question whether these new powers violated our constitutional rights, particularly the protections under the Fourth Amendment. What really stood out to me was the lack of transparency. It made me, and a lot of others, wonder just how far the government was willing to go in the name of national security.

3.47-7.40 : how the new legislatures popped into being after government expansion in the post-9/11 world

• After 9/11, I noticed that the government expanded rapidly, and with that came a wave of new legislatures focused on boosting national security and counterterrorism. I mentioned a quote from President George Bush and talked about the 9/11 Commission Report, which really outlined how serious the U.S. was about preventing future attacks. Between 2001 and 2004, federal spending on defense and security jumped over 50%—the biggest increase since the Korean War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. was basically the only superpower left, and everyone was looking to us to lead. That pressure pushed the government to act fast, expanding military, intelligence, and legislative efforts in a big way.

7.40-10.00:  how public perceptions changed after 9/11. 

• I noticed a huge shift in how people thought about national security. Before the attacks, most Americans saw terrorism as something that happened somewhere else. But when it happened on our own soil, everything changed—it felt personal. I came across an article by Gregory Treverton that explained how the U.S. wasn’t really prepared for this kind of threat because our strategies were shaped by Cold War thinking, not terrorism. The attacks exposed serious flaws in our intelligence systems, like the failure to share info between the CIA and FBI. People became more anxious, more alert. And that pressure—both from citizens and within government—pushed leaders to take national security a lot more seriously moving forward.

1.10 - 3.47: Welcome back, everyone. I’m glad everyone can join us for another episode of Debate With Dillard. Like I said, we will be examining 9/11 and the post-9/11 changes that affected not only the U.S., but the world as a whole. Our first point revolves around privacy and safety, and how they have changed as a result of mass surveillance programs. Then, we will be moving on to the new government agencies that came into being after 9/11. Finally, I will examine how public perceptions of national security have changed after 9/11.

Before we get into how privacy has changed, let's get into a little background of what exactly happened on 9/11. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, nineteen operatives from the Al Qaeda terrorist group hijacked four passenger planes on the east coast and the end result of more than 3,000 people murdered. Now like we talked about in Dr. Maginn’s class in his lecture, Osama Bin Laden, who was born in 1957, was the spearheader of this operation. He was born as a billionaire, his family was very wealthy. He co-owned the Houston airport with the Bush family of all people. He attended Oxford. You would think someone with such an education may have been prevented from such a heinous thing. He focused on the Quran, which is the Muslim document of faith, at Oxford. And then in 1988, after he had previously fought alongside the CIA-funded Mujahideen, he was a part of the founding organization of the pan-Islamic terrorist organization that ended up being known as Al Qaeda.

So, once the hijackers had succeeded in overtaking the planes, they had four targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, then either the White House or the Capitol, which still remains unsure. However, that plane was bravely taken over by passengers and crashed near a Pennsylvania field. Now, we’ve gotten our foundation and background. Privacy became a major concern after the attacks of 9/11.
People are scared. People are worried. And I really want to focus on the U.S. Patriot Act. The USA Patriot Act of 2001 resulted in more surveillance, allowing the FBI and other agencies to monitor communications without suspicion of terrorist activity. This included watching phone and internet activity/communications, which pretty much became the groundwork for widespread surveillance systems. Now, you may be confused and think, “Why would it be bad for the government to take more steps to prevent another 9/11 from happening?” Well, in terms of privacy, many people turned to things like the Fourth Amendment that guaranteed the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, and a lot of people thought that the government was bypassing these protections, in the name of security. Along with that, there was some lack of transparency that was involved. See, a lot of these privacy encroachments were done slightly discreetly, not to cause a fuss. And so on, people realized this, they thought to themselves, “Well, how far is the government going to go?” They weren’t necessarily mad, but it definitely raised eyebrows as a question. Now, along with the changes in privacy after 9/11, also came the change in flight safety. According to a JSTOR article by K. Jack Riley titled “Flight of Fancy and Passenger Security since 9/11,” there were three factors that had a really large contribution to improved safety. The first one was the idea that 9/11 served as a big wake-up call for how unaccustomed we had been for suicide attacks before 9/11. The second was the insertion that airplanes have reconstructed cockpit doors that strictly limit access to the cockpit. For example, most crews afterward modified their planes to ensure there is a barrier between the cockpit and the passengers, ensuring that they can’t be opened. These little changes that may seem obvious now, were not obvious before. But with that, it makes it a lot more difficult to conduct a similar 9/11 attack. Thirdly, the changes in the visa approval process: they represent a relatively untalked about but important contribution to air and transportation security. All 19 terrorists involved in the attacks had “legitimate” visas. So, after that, the visa process became much more strict and harder to come by with all of the added precautions involved with obtaining one.

3.47- 7.40 Next up we’re going to pivot and talk about our next point, which is how the new legislatures popped into being after government expansion in the post-9/11 world, as well as how people’s attitudes changed socially. First, I want to start off with a source from George Bush from 2002, from The American Yawp. He said, “We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. And all nations should know, America will do what’s necessary to ensure our nation’s security.” Bush’s words created a staple of what America felt like at the time. And even though it was such a tragic event, America had never really been more united. But strictly talking about how they handled the new legislatures – the 9/11 Commission Report titled “Reflecting on a Generational Challenge” from The American Yawp, it goes into detail. So the U.S. has committed lots of resources to national security and to countering terrorism. Between the years of 2001 and 2004, total federal spending on defense, including both costs from Iraq and Afghanistan, homeland security, and international affairs rose more than 50%. It rose from 345 billion to 547 billion dollars being spent on national security and organizations meant to counter terrorism. As it stated in the report, “The U.S. has not experienced such a rapid surge in national security spending since the Korean War.” We also have to look at the other factors that aren’t in the U.S. that might answer the question as to why the U.S. has been spending so much money after 9/11 on these organizations and legislatures. So, the Soviet Union collapsed when Bush was president, meaning the U.S. was really the only superpower left. Everyone was turning to the U.S. to respond. This played a major factor as well – there was external and internal pressure to get things “moving,” especially with military and intelligence power. This really highlighted the United States’ work to protect both ourselves and our allies, as well as securing resources like oil that ended up impacting national strategies. And, in the end, it kind of was a demonstration of both the reach and limitations of U.S. military power. Much of that is coming from another American Yawp chapter, American Politics Before 9/11, 2001.

7.40-10.00 My final point I want to talk about is how public perceptions changed after 9/11. Before 9/11, many Americans viewed terrorism as something that happened “somewhere else.” These attacks really shattered those illusions. For the first time in decades, the U.S. had been directly attacked on their very own soil. It created a big psychological shift. National security became something even more personal. There is an article from JSTOR that is written by Gregory Treverton, and he goes into the reasons as to what exactly was going on after 9/11. In other words, what the actions were from the U.S. government. He said the U.S. response to terrorism was shaped from the military and Cold War conflicts, which were focused on a global struggle against a “superpower,” not terrorism. The 9/11 attacks exposed the significant failures in U.S. intelligence, notably in airport security, and the failure to connect the dots about the hijackers. It also exposed organizational issues – key agencies failed to share critical information, like the CIA and FBI. There were instances where the CIA had some information the FBI didn’t have and vice versa. Another intelligence failure was in 2002, when the U.S. confidently predicted the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, despite lacking solid evidence. In some sense, citizens had a right to be wary, but these failures helped create a stronger national security. More resources. Also, when the actual people of the country, like Treverton explained, not just the representatives, are constantly anxious about national security, there is no choice but for the government to have to come up with better tactics on national security. Even though the failures were highlighted before 9/11, Treverton explains that one of the lead causes for these changes was because not only 9/11 but the Cold War as well.  

10.00-10.30 Thank you all for joining me on another episode of Debate with Dillard, where we covered the effects of privacy, public perception and governmnetal institutions following 9/11.  I hope to see you all on our next episode.  Feel free to leave a review and visit at Students Podcasting Center.