The attacks that killed 2,977 people changed the way we as a nation operate, both from a cultural and technological standpoint. An entire generation knows the process of going through security at the airport as standard procedure rather than a major shift in countering terrorist attacks.
For psychology professor Roxanne Cohen Silver one of the most striking things about the terrorist attack is "that we felt, justified or not, that we were invulnerable . . . It was the first time in a very long time that we recognized that there were people in the world who sought to do us harm."
One of the biggest changes in technology as a result of 9/11, observes Brookings' Nicole Turner Lee is "Back then we weren't thinking about surveillance technologies like we do today. More cameras . . . obviously around locations for national security and public safety reasons."
- Roxane Cohen Silver, Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science, Medicine, and Public Health at the University of California
- Nicol Turner Lee, Brookings senior fellow in Governance Studies and director of Brookings' Center for Technology Innovation
