Do you remember what you were doing on September 11, 2001? Perhaps many of you even started the day performing routine tasks – working on your computer, walking to school, checking off your grocery list.
But by 8:45 a.m. all that probably changed.
Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed 2,977 people in three separate cities. On this day, al Queda leader Osama bin Laden orchestrated four separate suicide attacks and crashed two planes into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, one plane into the Pentagon and one more plane in a Pennsylvania field.
No matter where you were in the nation, these attacks became known as a day of destruction, fear, grief and courage.
Thousands of people died and hundreds more sacrificed their lives trying to save the victims. More than 400 police officers and firefighters were killed that day. And amid the chaos, smoke and rubble, dozens of civilians came running to help those in need.
And while many millennials today weren’t old enough to understand the impact of this incident, it’s important to know how this day changed many facets of American life.
One of the most immediate changes that took place after the attacks was the implementation of stricter airline regulations. Soon after 9/11, the federal government created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and in November 19, 2001 Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act.
According to PBS, security was previously handled by each airport, which often outsourced to private security businesses. But after the attacks, new TSA guidelines required stricter passenger and luggage screening. Family and friends could no longer walk with loved ones to the gate and watch planes depart because the new rules restricted access to only ticketed passengers. Additionally, PBS writes, “An ever-changing array of machinery and procedures were introduced to scan for weapons and destructive items.” And after new threats were discovered after 9/11, liquids were banned and passengers were also required to remove shoes when walking through security.
Airplanes themselves were restructured. New cockpit doors were introduced and first-class cabin curtains were removed by some airlines. Pilots could also apply to become a federal flight deck officer, a title that allows them to carry loaded guns and act as a federal officer on the plane.
As John S. Pistole, then TSA administrator, said in his speech to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11, “America is more secure than we were a decade ago. We have made progress on every front, and we are more prepared to confront persistent and evolving threats against our transportation systems … Consider that before September 11, 2001, there was no cohesive system in place to vet passengers in advance of flying; only limited technologies in place for uncovering a wide array of threats to passengers or aircraft … and only minimal in-flight security on most flights.”
According to PBS, More than 130 pieces of 9/11-related legislation were introduced in Congress in the year following the attacks. One of the most recognizable is the USA Patriot Act, which grants federal officials greater authority in “tracking and intercepting communications, both for purposes of law enforcement and foreign intelligence gathering.” It also closes U.S. borders to foreign terrorists, detains terrorists currently in the nation and establishes new penalties and procedures against domestic and international terrorists.
Other laws include the Aviation and Transportation Security Act and the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, which required the State Department and Immigration to share visa and immigrant data with each other. What’s more, the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill gave educational funding to soldiers and the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 provided health care support for the men and women who worked at Ground Zero during and after the attacks.
The Department of Homeland security was also created in 2002 as a response to 9/11.
WND explains, “The department absorbed and reorganized 22 existing agencies that deal with domestic safety, law enforcement and immigration.” After 9/11, visas were harder to obtain and students and foreign nationals coming to America were subject to further scrutiny.
In addition, the formation of The Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) affected immigration policies for Mexicans and Latin Americans and their path to citizenship. As Senator Chuck Grassley, a member of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, tells US News, “9/11 just awoke everybody to the fact that it was awfully easy to get into the United States. When you’re talking about securing the border, you’re talking about securing it for people who want to come here … for very peaceful reasons or even for very violent reasons.”
As a result of the nation’s fear, a collection of various laws privacy laws were established. KQED News writes, “The growth [of U.S. intelligence] resulted in a marked increase in government oversight, primarily through a vast, clandestine network of phone and web surveillance.”
In 2013, The Washington Post obtained a $52.6 billion “black budget” report from Snowden, which detailed the operational “landscape” of the 16 spy agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community. In response to this article, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. told The Washington Post, “The United States has made a considerable investment in the Intelligence Community since the terror attacks of 9/11, a time which includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction technology and asymmetric threats in such areas as cyber-warfare.”
Also, IBT explains that in 2013, Edward Snowden revealed the “extensive scope of the NSA’s domestic spying.” According to him, the cellphones, email and corporate data were “subject to NSA surveillance without a warrant.”
Unfortunately, the NSA’s surveillance has led to increasing privacy concerns. IBT shares that after the 2008 recession, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, issues with privacy and political division, American trust in the government began fading. Pew Research shows that by 2013, Americans’ trust in the government fell to 19 percent. By June 2015, a Gallup poll showed that Americans who put a “great deal” and “quite a lot” of trust in Congress were at a staggering eight percent.
As PBS writes, “The American lexicon was one of the things that changed drastically in the months and years after the attack. Among the words or phrases (9/11 being one of them) that entered everyday language: al-Qaida, Taliban, ground zero, radicalism, extremism, anthrax and the Axis of Evil. Their usage dramatically increased and soon became part of Americans’ everyday lives.”
After 9/11, anti-Islamic violence rose in America. SF Gate reports that the FBI’s annual statistical report showed that hate-crimes against Muslims increased by1,600 percent, from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 incidents in the year of the attacks.
In Huffington Post’s interview with many Muslim Americans, these citizens revealed that 9/11 “marks the day their religion went from something others found interesting and mysterious to something viewed as sinister.” Many Muslims questioned their faith, encountered their first experience with Islamophobic comments, were told to “go home” and they endured racial profiling and increased airport security checks.
Zainab Chaudry, the outreach manager at the Maryland chapter of the CAIR, tells Huffington Post, “I think for most American Muslims, many of us categorize our lives as pre-9/11 and post-9/11 because of the impact the attack had on our lives in a personal and professional capacity.”
On the day of the attacks, Chaudry’s dad called her to tell her to take off her hijab out of fear for her safety. For two weeks, she wore baseball caps and hoodies in place of her headscarf. During this time, the woman wondered about what Islam truly taught so she studied the tenets of the religion in order to regain confidence.
She tells Huffington Post, “I realized that I was going to be in a position where, at least for the forseeable future, I was going to have to answer difficult questions and have difficult conversations. And I wouldn’t be able to go back to that privileged existence where I had the security blanket of naively thinking I wouldn’t be held accountable for actions I wasn’t personally engaged in.”
From airline travel to NSA spying to hate crimes, 9/11 changed American lifestyle; some men and women continue to suffer more than others. So whether or not you were directly affected by the tragedies that ensued 15 years ago, let this day remain a day that is never forgotten. Let us continue to remember with strength, resilience and hope that, as President Obama said in this year’s 9/11 speech, “our diversity, our patchwork heritage, is not a weakness.”
