Americas Response to 911

The attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States will forever change the nation and the way the U.S. protects its citizens from terrorist threats. Before 9/11 the United States found difficulty in communicating intelligence information between federal agencies. Airport security was loose and was the responsibility of private contractors that were contracted through the airports. Intelligence gathering and dissemination was outdated and slowed due to flat budgets. September 11th would reveal many weaknesses in how the U.S. protects its citizens from terrorist attacks within its borders and spawned the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, (DHS) and the Transportation Security Administration, (TSA). Undoubtedly, the events of 9/11 will forever be one of the most unfortunate and significant events to happen to the United States and have forever changed a nation.
There were multiple flaws in the way the United States protected its borders. Before September 11th, 2001, the United States conducted homeland security operations using 40 different federal agencies. Information gathered on suspected terrorist activity was not shared through the homeland security community. Due to the “need to know” attitude by different organizations, i.e. the Central Intelligence Administration, (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigations, (FBI), many opportunities to connect the dots were missed. The CIA had received information that Al Qadae was planning an attack against the U.S. Meanwhile, the FBI posted a report on July 2001 regarding potential terrorist interest in learning to fly. One month later Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker, was arrest for immigration charges. A tip was provided to the FBI at a Minnesota Flight training school where Moussaoui was training. If the CIA had connected the dots to recent activity of Al Qadea and that Moussaoui was an Al Qadea operative the tragedy might have been disrupted. A 9/11 Commission Report list a number of