The Terrorist Attacks of 9/11

A critical infrastructure is defined as any facility, system, or function which provides the foundation for national security, governance, economic vitality, reputation, and way of life. (http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/NIPP_InfoSharing.pdf)In short, critical infrastructure is by definition essential for the survival of the nation. The USA PATRIOT Act specifically defines critical infrastructure as "systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, (Jena Baker McNeill and Richard Weitz, 2010) so vital to the United States that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating

The attack of 9/11/2001 shocked the entire United States. The government, President, and every civilian felt the fear from this day, and the vulnerability of this country came quickly and surprisingly evident. With such a disaster occurring in New York City, one of the largest cities in the United States, killing thousands and injuring many more, the United States was under an awakening of an unfortunate and obvious need for increased security in various aspects, specifically the industry of transit.

It is essential to understand America’s critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) and National Infrastructure Protection Program (NIPP) to ensure survivability of its critical assets, while maintaining security for America. “The plans are carried out in practice by an integrated network of Federal departments and agencies, State and local government agencies, private sector entities, and a growing number of regional consortia (DHS, 2009, p. I).” Several agencies work together to mitigate attacks on CIKR to protect public safety and security of the nation. A terrorist may stop at nothing to carry out an attack on CIKR. If an attack or natural disaster does transpire, each agency working together to restore the damage must be timely. Additionally, NIPP helps to identify hazards associated with the various sectors, and provides necessary security measures to harden resources (DHS,

The 9/11 attacks opened the avenue for a scrutiny of the performance and ability of the intelligence community to detect any threats to the safety of the United States. The media, politicians, reformists and other interested parties would not comprehend how such an attack would happen without the knowledge of the intelligence community. However, it is important to consider the fact that the attack was one of its kind and could not be approached with the resources and expertise used in other initiative such as the cold war. Therefore, the need to restructure the intelligence community arose from the view that it was still operating in the mindset and spirit of the cold war even in the modern era that had seen a revolutionary change of warfare

During the course of this paper I will be evaluating the U.S security since 9/11, evaluating their ability to be resilient and evaluating how much progress has been done since 9/11. So you might ask, what is resilience? Resilience is defined as the ability to undergo obstacles and negative situations; and within that, overcome and recover. Prior to 9/11, there were several practices which were acceptable in our transportation system but today are no longer; let’s take a look at a few;

The 9/11 attacks provided new insights to security agencies, especially in their role of detecting and thwarting terrorist activities. Of particular interest was the association of various racial groups, especially those from the Muslim community with terrorism. Therefore, security agencies invested in isolating these racial groups as suspects of terrorism due to their associated connection with terrorism. However, this racial profiling cannot be justified as a counterterrorism measure since it is a flawed line of reasoning. For instance, it is not always the case that some racial groups are always responsible for terrorism. In fact, the 9/11 events would not have been possible without collaborators inside the United States who are not necessarily

The attacks of 9/11 affected the United States by increasing discrimination, endangering the health of many Americans, hurting the economy and changing foreign and security policies.

September 11, 2001, a day the people in United States will all remember, a terrorist group called al-Qaeda hijacked four U.S. airplanes and directed them to crush into twin towers and World Trade Center the Pentagon. The fourth plane, thought to be heading to the capitol in Washington, however, crushed in rural Pennsylvania. This terrorist attack took the lives of nearly 3,000 people, resulting in being one of the worst attack on the United States in history. The criprits, Al-Qaeda, is a group that practice in muslim religion and desire to create a muslim state independent from other countries. The September 11 attack by al-Qaeda, later resulted in changes in the United States’s views on safety, vigilance, and privacy.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, altered American 's perceptions of the role in the world by strongly supporting the increased spending on national security and counterterrorism. Also, Americans have become more aware of how and where to engage in the world. As a result of the attacks, the US now has a defense that totals to nearly half the global total and has military dominance over scene, air, and space. The US also has the capability to dispatch massive military power anywhere in the world making them the system shaper. You may ask yourself just have a bad or do you check on September 11, 2001 was that led to this chaos and security becoming abnormally tight you may ask yourself just have a bad do you check on September 11, 2001

United States’ national infrastructure are resources that are vital to keep commerce operating. Technology have allowed the governments and the private sector to share vital information with them. The nation well-being depend on each of the critical infrastructures, the big question is on how to maintain all of our infrastructure sectors operative without any problem. There a big wave of threats to our nation and if one of this threads go through, it can created a multidimensional problem to the infrastructure system of the country. The main concerns that exist in protecting the U.S. against any attacks to any U.S. infrastructure and in the same time on how to have a system that work well with other agencies. For example; is important to

The Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience advances a national unity of effort to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure (The White House Office of the Press Secretary, February 2013). It is imperative for every nation to develop a critical infrastructure protection plan that will provide the essential services to its society. To archive this, a government must be proactive and coordinate its efforts that will reinforce and maintain secure, functioning, and

The attacks of 9/11 was an act of terrorism that happened in New York. Two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon in Virginia, and another one crashed into a field in Pennsylvania intended to strike in Washington D.C. Three thousand civilian lives were lost that day. It was said by Al-Qaeda group, Osama Bin Laden that the purpose of 9/11 terror was to take revenge for the United States. The typical morning which turned out the historical tragedy terror in the world, created victims by the terror, that have disturbed the peace everyone in the world. It was the start of revenge from United States to Al-Qaeda.

Nearly every community has some sort of community risk, threat, and assessment plan that takes into account one of the six potential risks that are of concern to homeland security. Though each of these plans will likely differ from one another, many communities will have the same types of information in their plans. This essay will look at the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment Guide (THIRA), the Community Risk Reduction Planning Guide, as well as FEMA’s National Preparedness plan. Any combination of these guides are a good starting point for every community in America. At top of every communities list as well as the nation is the protection of the critical infrastructure. Loss of infrastructure regardless of how big or small the community is could have very crippling effects on that community.

Using the cybersecurity framework, the Federal Highway Administation (FHWA) is creating a tool for state and local transportation agencies. The tool will be one part of the overall agency response to the emergent cyber resilience challenge. To develop the tool, the FHWA will tailor the NIST framework for transportation agencies with help from industry and operating agencies. The tool, now in the early stages of planning, will include a structured cybersecurity assessment and development program for the transportation community of practice. Transportation agencies will be able to use the tailored framework as a self-assessment tool to evaluate their current practices and to identify where they can improve current cybersecurity activities and programs. The goal of the tool is to improve the overall protection and resilience of the nation’s highway infrastructure.

The distinction between homeland security and homeland defense is pivotal in gaining a better understanding of how these agencies work and how they correlate to our nations infrastructure. We must understand the designated missions set forth for both these agencies while learning how they meet the tasks appointed to them and resources utilized to accomplish the mission. Learning the fundamentals of our nations infrastructure information must be provided to showcase how these agencies utilize the appropriate resources to guarantee the security of these critical infrastructures. Offering an opinion in the definition of homeland security and how resources are being utilized to fix vulnerabilities is vital to showcase what is being distributed and learned on a researchers and readers level. Homeland security and homeland defense play a pivotal role in ensuring our borders are protected.