Last week, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum continued its digital public program series When the World Changes with Asha Rangappa, former FBI special agent and now a senior lecturer on national security law at Yale University, and Greg Ehrie, a 22-year veteran of the FBI and now vice president for law enforcement & analysis at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

In conversation with Clifford Chanin, executive vice president and deputy director for museum programs, Rangappa and Ehrie discussed the growing threat of violent domestic terrorism, political disinformation, the role of social media in perpetuating extremism, and prevention efforts for law enforcement and the new administration.

In the clips below, Rangappa and Ehrie reflect on recent incidences of domestic terrorism and what these events reveal about the United States:

“I think that this might have been the first time that the American consciousness really wrapped its mind around the idea of something like domestic terrorism. For 20 years we’ve been thinking of terrorism as a foreign threat. That it is coming from a particular set of countries, from a particular ideology, it looks a particular way, it manifests in a particular way—it’s all explosions, or airplanes, or something like that. And so this, I think, was a paradigm shift—whether or not it was the peak of the movement—I think in a way that maybe Charlottesville even wasn’t. I think Charlottesville was shocking, but I think this was a paradigm of, ‘Oh we have a problem here that we’re going to have to deal with because it’s not going away.’ It’s not going away because of this administration change or something like that, this is a long-term threat.”

“Domestic terrorism is not new but as, again, my colleague said, we’re so used to seeing this on foreign soil, or a foreign attack on us—this was us. This was our citizens coming together and consciously making this choice, that we’re going to invade and commit this terrorist attack. I think as we see, you know, again, over the last four years these groups have been ‘emboldened’ is the word I hear a lot now. They were there but now, for whatever reason, they felt they can come out and not have to stay in the shadows. They all knew, as citizens here, when they were conducting this attack they were being filmed, for the most part their faces weren’t covered, they were going to be identified and that didn’t bother them in the least. They felt they were doing the right thing to support their ideology. So very scary to see this from ourselves and very difficult for one of the first times in our history we can’t point elsewhere, this is us.”

For more public programs like these, please visit our past program archive or check 911memorial.org/programs to learn of forthcoming programs.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

We are pleased to present the next program in our When the World Changes digital conversation series, “The Domestic Terrorist Threat,” at 2:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, February 18.

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, domestic violent extremism currently poses the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Asha Rangappa, former FBI special agent and now a senior lecturer on national security law at Yale University, and Greg Ehrie, a 22-year veteran of the FBI and now vice president for law enforcement & analysis at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), reflect upon the national security challenges domestic terrorism poses for our national security.

The When the World Changes series is dedicated to offering insight, empathy, and expertise toward past and present challenges by drawing on lessons learned from 9/11 history: how strength was expressed in a time of sorrow, how unimaginable problems were solved, and how tragedy and adversity were met with resilience and hope.

Live captioning will be provided for this program. Join us at 911memorial.org/watch.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

On Monday, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum continued its digital public program series When the World Changes with Thomas Hegghammer, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and author of The Caravan: Abdallah Azzam and the Rise of Global Jihad.

In conversation with Clifford Chanin, executive vice president and deputy director for museum programs, Hegghammer discussed his research and insights from his book, a biography of the influential ideologue who played a crucial role in the international spread of the jihadi movement.

In the clip below, Hegghammer discusses how Abdullah Azzam contributed to the structural erosion of authority within the jihadi movement at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Once you've told someone not to listen to authority at some point they're going to stop listening to you as well. They're going to become uncontrollable because it's been imprinted in them that, you know, all kinds of traditional forms of authority are just corrupt and not worth listening to. And I think it's no coincidence that it's after Azzam introduced this argument that the jihadi movement is, kind of, devolved into, kind of, ever more brutality, ever more factionalization and so on. It's because it's leaderless, they cannot agree on anything and they've stopped, long since stopped, listening to mainstream Islamic clerics. And so this is a story of a collapse in authority and Azzam, you know, played an important role in it.

For more public programs like these, please visit our past program archive or check 911memorial.org/programs to learn of forthcoming programs.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

We are pleased to present the next program in our When the World Changes digital conversation series at 2 p.m. ET on Monday, February 8.

Thomas Hegghammer, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and author of The Caravan: Abdallah Azzam and the Rise of Global Jihad, will discuss the early history and ideology of al-Qaeda in "The Rise of Global Jihad."

The When the World Changes series is dedicated to offering insight, empathy, and expertise toward past and present challenges by drawing on lessons learned from 9/11 history: how strength was expressed in a time of sorrow, how unimaginable problems were solved, and how tragedy and adversity were met with resilience and hope.

Live captioning will be provided for this program. Join us at 911memorial.org/watch.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

The 9/11 Memorial & Museum’s Winter/Spring 2021 public program season will kick off on Monday, February 8, and will cover a range of topics that address the ongoing impacts and continued resonance of the 9/11 and 1993 attacks, their historical context, and their aftermath.

The first program of this season will be “The Rise of Global Jihad” with Thomas Hegghammer, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. Other programs in our digital conversation series will reflect on the growing threat of domestic terrorism, the lasting significance of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, and the Abbottabad Papers.

Explore the full schedule at 911memorial.org/programs.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

On Thursday, December 17, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum continued its digital public program series When the World Changes with Ambassador Richard Olson, former U.S. State Department diplomat and now a senior advisor at the United States Institute of Peace.

The conversation between Ambassador Olson and Clifford Chanin, executive vice president and deputy director for museum programs, covered the profound challenges and opportunities in the ongoing diplomatic efforts, in light of the start of American troop withdrawals. In the clip below, Ambassador Olson discusses the leverage that the Taliban does and doesn’t hold when it comes to negotiations.

“The Taliban have military strength but they don’t have a lot of political strength. I mean, all of the polling for Afghanistan consistently, over many years, shows that, you know, the Taliban enjoys support amongst a small minority of the population. So, the trick in these negotiations is to mobilize the latent political strength on the Republic side against the Taliban’s military strength. Very-- difficult to do but I think that’s the challenge for the negotiations ahead.”

For more public programs like these, please visit our past program archive or check 911memorial.org/programs to learn of forthcoming programs.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

Presented in conjunction with the third annual Summit on Security, this week the 9/11 Memorial & Museum presented the public program “Are We Safer?”

Moderated by former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, panelists for this program included former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morell; former Congresswoman and now Director, President, and CEO of the Wilson Center Jane Harman; Admiral William H. McRaven, U.S. Navy (Ret.); and NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller.

The speakers discussed evolving national security threats to the United States and how we can make nations and citizens safer. In the clips below, Admiral William H. McRaven and Deputy Commissioner John Miller both emphasize the importance of education and media literacy in achieving this goal.

“What's the greatest threat to national security? K-12 education. Because if we are not educating the youth of America, having them understand the cultural differences, having them learn to speak different languages, you know, having them be exposed to different ideas, then we're not going to build the cadre of national security experts, foreign services officers, CIA officers, military officers that understand the problems that they are grappling with. You only do that through great education. And my biggest concern on the national security front isn't, are we going to have the next best drone? It's, are we going to have the next man or woman who can think through these complex issues?”

“We were that much smarter coming into this election as a public, to be careful about what we read and believed on the internet and to look at the source. Was it a troll, was it a real person, did the Facebook account exist? As an industry, the Facebooks, and the Twitters, and the Instagrams, to do better vetting of the machines that were just pumping out propaganda with no one, really, behind them except a foreign power. And-- as intelligence agencies, to be able to pick up on that. I think a combination of those things together is why that was less of a factor this time. And in the background, of course, you've still got all the QAnon conspiracy theories and the people who are doing this on their own, but we can make enough trouble for ourselves without the help from foreign adversaries. And yet, despite all that, who else did we see in the game? It wasn't just the United States that looked at what Russia did and dug into it, you saw the North Koreans in the game, you saw the Iranians in the game with 92 Iranian websites shut down just a month before the election. You saw China in the game. And everybody was in the game operating for their own narrow interests. So we take two lessons away from that question, which is one, we're never gonna let it happen to us, the way it happened to us the first time, because we can see it coming. And two, everybody else is now in the game so this isn't going away. It's just going to be something that we have to get better and better at managing.”

Check 911memorial.org/programs to learn of forthcoming programs like this one.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

As our city and nation confront the current global health crisis, leaders from business, government, and the military gathered virtually on November 9 and 10 for the third annual 9/11 Memorial & Museum Summit on Security, presented by Fiserv.

Leaders such as Chairman Michael R. Bloomberg and Fiserv President, CEO, and Director Frank J. Bisignano were joined by more than 30 experts, chief executives, senior military and intelligence officials, and business and community leaders from across the public and private sectors for a critical dialogue about how we can all make our companies, cities, and nations safer. 

The agenda for this year’s Summit was wide-ranging and impactful, exploring topics such as crisis leadership, cybersecurity threats in this new age of remote work, the ongoing transformation of airline security, and healthcare privacy. A Lessons on Leadership series featured prominent figures providing their first-person experience, drawing upon lessons from the past to meet present-day challenges, whether in service of maintaining our nation’s nuclear strike capability or ensuring the security and stability of the financial markets.

In conversation with Bloomberg’s Jason Kelly, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser shared their experience planning for and confronting COVID-19, as well how to address systemic racism in the U.S., and solutions to the economic hardships confronted by the communities they serve.

Frank Bisignano reflected on his time managing Citigroup’s continuity plan after 9/11, helping relocate 16,000 workers who were displaced, and how this experience affected him as a leader and now informs Fiserv’s response to the pandemic.

Synchrony Financial CEO Margaret Keane spoke about the decision to pivot the company to remote work in order to keep her employees safe from COVID-19. She sees value in taking decisive action and knowing how to avoid micromanaging. “I have more confidence in who I am as a leader,” Keane told Kelly, emphasizing the value in giving her employees hope to keep them engaged in the workplace. “We need hope,” she said.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

The third annual 9/11 Memorial & Museum Summit on Security is made possible by Presenting Sponsor Fiserv and Media Sponsor Bloomberg, as well as Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Montefiore Medicine, Anheuser-Busch Foundation, Brightcove, Con Edison, Mobilitie, K2 Integrity. Formerly K2 Intelligence Financial Integrity Network, and Underwriters Laboratories Inc. Funds raised by this event support 9/11 Memorial & Museum Public and Professional Programs and Salute to Service programming in honor of veterans and their families.

We are pleased to present the next program in our When the World Changes digital conversation series at 2 p.m. ET on Monday, November 9.

Former secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and 9/11 Memorial & Museum trustee Jeh Johnson will lead a panel discussion about the changing threat environment on U.S. soil nearly 20 years after 9/11.  

In recent years, the number of foreign terrorist attacks against the United States has decreased. Given this, Secretary Johnson asks our distinguished panelists to reflect upon whether Americans are really safer now, or has the threat changed? Secretary Johnson is joined by former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morell, former Congresswoman and now Director, President and CEO of the Wilson Center Jane Harman, Admiral William H. McRaven, U.S. Navy (Ret.), and NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller.

This program is offered in conjunction with the third annual 9/11 Memorial & Museum Summit on Security, presented by Fiserv, which brings together many of the world's leading voices from across the public and private sectors to build on the discussion of how we can all make our companies, cities, and nations safer. 

Live captioning will be provided.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

On Monday, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum kicked off a new season of its digital public program series When the World Changes with Fran Moore, Director for Intelligence (now Analysis) at the Central Intelligence Agency (2010–2014).

In conversation with Clifford Chanin, executive vice president and deputy director for museum programs, Moore discussed how collaboration within the intelligence community, and with the armed forces, helped bring Osama bin Laden to justice.

In the video clip below, Moore explains the critical roles women have held at the CIA and in other areas of the intelligence community, and how these women were instrumental in the search for bin Laden.

“The Agency, I think, is at the forefront of reducing barriers to advancement for all employees. But, for decades targeting, counter-espionage work was where a lot of the best and brightest women, both operationally and analytically, went when other paths to advancement were more fraught for women. And some of the women that were critical in doing the bin Laden work, or some of the early bin Laden work, had been, you know, in the job for more than five years. So in some respects barriers to advancement have led women to gravitate to some of those occupations in the past and that laid the groundwork for some of that success.”

Moore shares more about women in the Agency in an NBC News report “Sisterhood of Spies: Women crack the code at the CIA” with Ann Curry.

Check 911memorial.org/programs to watch past public programs and to learn of upcoming programs.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff