Negative Effects Of 9/11

On September 11th, 2000, America was changed forever, with repercussions still being felt today, due to a domestic terrorist attack by the terrorist group al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, which targeted historic locations in the U.S through airline hijackings and suicide attacks, which was done by 19 terrorists. The terrorists had crashed planes in the Twin Towers, The Pentagon, and a failed attempt which resulted in a crashed ¬plane in Pennsylvania. Over 2,996 people had died in total during these terrible attacks. The incident occurred when the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, was hijacked by terrorists and was crashed into the North Tower at 8:48 a.m. The public was in shock, terrified by the sudden destruction early that morning.

The first of these laws that were passed would be the Patriot Act. The USA Patriot Act, passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, was enacted on October 11th. This law granted the Nation Security Agency (NSA), the United States Department of Justice, and other federal agencies the ability to survey electronic communications. This was done in an effort to increase security against domestic terrorism, border security, etc. A side effect of this law was our privacy for our data was compromised in the name of security. This can be seen in the article “Spying as They Like it” by Michael Moynihan, Moynihan gives a quote by a letter by Attorney General Eric Holder, where he discusses his thoughts on his legislation and how it was used by the NSA, where he wrote “as the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely disturbed by what appears to be an overbroad interpretation of the Act.” (Moynihan). His response was due to The Guardian leaking a document concerning the Patriot Act. Also in the article “Spying as They Like it”, Moynihan writes “Sensenbrenner was responding to documents leaked to The Guardian by Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former contract worker at the NSA, that revealed a massive government data-mining program.” (Moynihan). This is important as this shows the government’s ability to collect our information, with this leak showing that there are many things that the

The Department of Homeland Security was created from Congress passing and President George W. Bush signing the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The DHS was officially founded November 25th, 2002, with them being responsible for a variety of tasks, which includes emergency response, cybersecurity and border security. On the article “United States Department of Homeland Security” by Judson Knight, he writes about the variety of tasks the department has accomplished. In the article, he writes “DHS was scheduled to absorb 22 agencies from nine different departments (Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Justice, State, Transportation, and Treasury) and two independent offices (FEMA and the General Services Administration, or GSA). With these would come 170,000 government employees, ranging from the men and women of the Coast Guard and Secret Service, to plant and animal health inspectors and computer security specialists.” This is important to note as this shows the diverse roles the DHS does daily, and their efforts have led to an overall safer country for all of