Former New Jersey Attorney General John J. Farmer, Jr. recalls his experiences on the day of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and compares America’s responses to other disasters and emergencies that have arisen since then. From 2003-2004, as senior counsel and team leader for the 9/11 Commission, Farmer led the investigation of the country’s preparedness for and response to the terrorist attacks and was a principal author of the Commission’s final report.
Ava Majlesi hosted the conversation with Farmer as part of an event held by the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. The original recording took place on September 9, 2021 and was introduced by former Dean Peter March.
We thank the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences for partnering with us on the content of this episode.
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Hi I’m saladine ambar welcome to this moment in democracy today marks 21 years since the September 11th attacks on our nation this episode is in remembrance of the lives lost and the tragedies that occurred on that day the conversation you’ll hear in a moment was hosted by
The School of Arts and Sciences at Ruckers University New Brunswick last year to Mark the 20th anniversary of 911 former Dean Peter March welcomed John farmer and Ava melisi for a conversation reflection on 911 John farmer is the director of the Eagleton Institute of politics and served as the Attorney
General of New Jersey at the time when the 911 attacks occurred AA Mesi is the associate director of Eagleton Miller Center for Community protection and resilience we thank the School of Arts and Sciences for partnering with us on the content of this episode thank you for tuning in here’s John farmer
Describing his time serving as as Attorney General of New Jersey back in 2001 yes um I was New Jersey’s Attorney General on 911 and for the prior couple of years before that and um actually had my baptism of fire so to speak in emergencies early in my tenure when
Herane Floyd hit and we had flooding similar to what we experienced last week and um it was uh during that period of flooding that I realized the role that the Attorney General had in emergencies um every every State’s Attorney General office is structured differently in New
Jerseys you sit a top a really fantastic Department of Law and Public Safety which includes the New Jersey State Police and within New Jersey State Police is the is the uh office of emergency management so when Hurricane Floyd hit and people started asking me questions about what they should do I
You know had that feeling you’re asking me you know and realized that I did have a role to play in managing emergencies and came to really rely on OEM they they were not located in a special building then the way they are now where they are
Part of this uh one of the best fusion centers in the country at the time OEM was in the basement of division headquarters in West Trenton and um they were just incredibly competent and just knew what they were doing and I had a great comfort level working with them
But after after Hurricane Floyd I I decided to get my FEMA certification in Emergency Management so I would at least have some idea what I was doing the other issue that dominated my turn tenure as attorney general was the racial profiling issue and uh we had
Over uh two and a half year period made uh significant strides in addressing that that issue and in rebuilding trust in some cases building trust between uh affected communities and uh New Jersey State Police and other law enforcement agencies so on 910 we were hosting a national conference on police community
Relations in Atlantic City and the first day had gone tremendously well we had we had panels of people who you know from the black ministers Council to the uh black issues convention to the Hispanic community on the same de with uh members of the State Police and other law
Enforcement agencies that a couple years prior they really hadn’t had much of a relationship with so we had started rebuilding those relationships and building those relationships and uh we finished September 10th in a really upbeat mood and thought you know we’re really turning the corner on this issue
Uh and we’re very optimistic so the morning of 911 I was walking over to the convention center in Atlantic City uh to start the second day of the conference and um when everyone’s uh Pages went off didn’t have cell phones back then uh some people had blackberries most of us
Had pagers but they all the pages started going off saying there had been an accident at the trade center and by the time I made it over to the convention center the second plane had hit um the second tower so we knew that we were under attack and um uh so uh we
Quickly uh suspended the conference sent people home and raced up to division headquarters um where we issued an emergency declaration had the governor sign it and again you know uh OEM did a fantastic job drafting that order my contribution of to the order was to expand the um mobilization of hospitals
And ambulances so that when we later that day Jersey City was choked with ambulances from all over the state uh I should have listened to the experts at OEM and and left it confined to the the region the Northeast part of the state but that was my uh my initial mistake
That morning was expanding the scope of the emergency order um and so we had actually had plans for an incident that might occur in ler Manhattan um Le in the run up to the Millennium and the Y2K issue we thought there might be a terrorist attack in lower Manhattan
Coinciding with January 1st so uh we had made plans to uh to use Liberty State Park as a staging area for uh assistance to New York and also as a potential Trauma Center for victims of whatever might happen in New York so we did have
Plans in place that was the first time I remember hearing the name Osama bin Maden is the run up to the Millennium uh and we put those plans into activation on on 911 and from division headquarters uh we jumped in a helicopter and flew to uh Liberty State Park and like you know
One of those images that’s ingrained forever I never forget the site of the uh of the of the Towers burning and um enormous pile 40 50 stories high of just burning rubble and and thinking you know that 50,000 people work in the Trade Center and this happened at rush hour
You know who knows how many people are perishing in there um and you know as someone who was in charge of Public Safety in in state that was a blow that I I to this day carry with me um feeling that you know how how could this possibly have
Happened so you mentioned some of the emergencies that you had to deal with leading up to 911 but as you were on board that State Police uh helicopter looking down at the remains of the twin towers as the crisis unfolded did you feel prepared for that moment and all of
The moments that followed you say uh that you had certain plans in place but did you feel prepared sure answer is no I mean there was a lot of chaos that day and and that’s going to be the case in in a kinetic event like that you know he had
Plans that we could activate uh but uh you know it’s hard to it’s hard 20 years later to sort of recapture the um the fear um that day that okay you know they hit the Trade Center they hit the Pentagon there was a fourth plane down
What’s next um and so all these reports were coming in um you know U most of them false but you know the um reports about people in Central Park with explosive backpacks on you know and reports of Israeli Commandos leaving the scene and reports of thousands of Muslims dancing in Jersey City and
Patterson um and you know we learned very very early on or I did very early on to interrogate the source of those reports you know how do you know this who’ you hear it from before we start scrambling and sending resources to respond to things that are Phantoms
Let’s try to at least establish that there’s some credibility to them um the report about Muslims dancing in Jersey City uh had some uh credibility for me because um Jersey City had been the staging ground for the attack on the Trade Center in 1993 so we did send
Resources over to Jersey City to check it out and um report that came back to me was was there was nothing basically certainly not thousands of people dancing on the streets or whatever but it also brought home to me very early on that uh we had to do some Outreach uh to
The Muslim Community um because we would need their help and also uh to tell them that we would not tolerate vigilante activity so the days after 9911 were a lot of visits to uh homes and to mosques and to other uh seek temples um synagogues uh trying to reassure people
That we were not going to tolerate violence um so you know collateral to the Trade Center attack so you get to Jersey City what are some of the immediate First Steps um that you need to take to alleviate the Fallout and you know how does the rest
Of the day shape up for the Attorney General of the state so the rest of the day was we had a Command Module set up and um was working with Carson Dunbar who was at the time uh the colonel and superintendent of the State Police and with Paul zubek who was my first
Assistant at the time and and the outstanding people from OEM and we were sending uh Marine police boats uh shuttling uh back and forth from Lower Manhattan uh bringing wounded people back and also bringing First Responders over it was Communications were uh very difficult because the the state police
Radio tower was on was on the North Tower and so that when the North Tower fell we lost uh the ability to communicate by radio and we resorted to Runners um just literally sending people physically back and forth uh to try to gain situational awareness and figure out and coordinate what people were
Doing so there was a lot of chaos there were there were legal calls that had to be made you know later that day we got a request from the federal uh FBI and the US attorney’s office uh to have the state police uh search the um the
Garbage of the airport hotels near New York which sounds like a pretty easy thing to do until you realize that you know New Jersey had a state state versus hemple a Supreme Court case that unique in the country had declared that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy
In the contents of their garbage so uh we had a little hiccup over that and and you know I dictated a short memo to the file basically predicting that that if this if this situation were to come before the court in the context of a terrorist attack that doesn’t involve
Residential garbage but Hotel garbage they would distinguish State versus hemple and so we let the state police uh we freed them to do that it was um a lot of uh trying to figure out what was happening in New York the mayor was trapped for several hours and we
Couldn’t find him and the um the upper levels of command of the fire department was was essentially um destroyed um you know died in the died in the collapse and I remember one incident where they brought the body of one of the fire chiefs across to New Jersey by mistake
Um and um and he was sitting on his body was laid on the dock and New York New York folks came over and said we got to have him back and there was a little per fluffle about that because once he’s once he’s sort of in New Jersey he’s
He’s ours and so we had to again sort of bend the rules a little bit and just uh dictate aend to the file that that was a mistake in delivery and we’re refusing delivery on behalf of the state of New Jersey so we could be sent back but I
Would say that the big challenge of the day was U was establishing Communications at worked um establishing connectivity with the response in New York and figuring out how we could help so I’d like to fast forward to the 911 Commission uh ultimately you served as senior Council and team leader for
The 911 Commission from 2003 to 2004 how did that opportunity arise for you so um my interest in it dates from 911 itself when you know this is happening and I’m thinking how in the world did this happen how did it come to this or in sort of military PRS Whiskey Tango foxr
You know what what just happened uh so I had an abiding curiosity about to understand what we all went through and it took a couple of years initially the Bush Administration was opposed to creating the commission they thought it would be a distraction from from fighting the war on terror and and um
And were opposed to it um it was really the the efforts of the victim’s families that pressured the administration and Congress and ultimately they relented and and formed the commission the initial appointment of the chair of the commission was Henry Kissinger and um the family subjected to to his
Appointment I think rightly so because he has a consulting company that has a deep reach into so many secur uh security agencies around around the world uh that there were potential conflicts there so the Bush Administration then turned to Governor Cain former Governor Kan of New Jersey
Who I never worked for directly but I got to know during my time uh in the Whitman Administration as uh you know her Chief counsel and then as Ag and I I had taught uh and lectured at at Drew University where Governor Kan was the
President and um and he asked me if I was interested and in in uh participating in the investigation and I said absolutely I would love to do this so tell me a bit about uh your day-to-day what was your charge what was your what was your mission what was your
Day-to-day like in that role so the team that I led again really strong fantastic people uh we were charged with um with basically piecing together the chronology of 911 you know the day itself who did what when and U from the from the hijackers you know getting on
The planes through uh the end of the response or the the end of the the attacks and the and the and the followup to that and then we were charged with evaluating the state of our nation’s emergency preparedness you know after the attacks and currently back then and
Looking at the private sector as well because one of the things that we we found in the early in the early days after 911 was that uh we knew that a significant amount of the critical infrastructure of our state is in private hands but the state of New
Jersey had no inventory of that and um and so uh what we did was we took the division of law you six 650 lawyers or so and um and part of the division of Criminal Justice and we basically had them fan out over the state and make and
Make that create that index of critical infrastructure so that we would at least know of where the potential vulnerabilities were and um uh and so that was part of the charge with the Comm Mission as well is to sort of evaluate what are the standards of of
Care that are involved in private sector which controls so much of our critical infrastructure so so the challenge of the investigation was uh I thought the hard part was going to be piecing together the the events in New York in the towers and who did what when that
Turned out to be it was complex and there were a lot of interviews involved but the stories were lining up um and and they were uh pretty consistent uh the the challenge turned out to be the national response uh and that surprised me because uh because there had been
Congressional testimony about that there had been tv specials about that where people had testified about it and as we as our team fanned out and started interviewing different responders uh the military uh air controllers the FAA folks the stories weren’t matching what had been told to the public so uh so my
My daily routine I was splitting time between our New York office and Washington office and I was um very much involved in the National um the national response story because that’s where there seemed to be a discrepancy between what had been told and what we were and
What we were finding so it’s a lengthy report and rightfully so but what were some of the commission’s key findings that you can share with the audience well in terms of in terms of my team’s work um we did highlight the discrepancies that um had had arisen between what the administration had been
Telling the public and what was true um you know what they had been telling the public was that the first two planes were a shock and a surprise and there was no way to react in time for them uh but that they had narrowly missed interdicting uh American Airlines 77
Which hit the Pentagon and that they were effectively lined up on United 93 and had that plane come closer to to the nation’s capital they were they were prepared uh to take it out um the reality that we found was that um they had a couple moments notice not of
American 77 but of a plane near the Pentagon um and really weren’t a not not in a position to take it out and and they the military air controllers learned about um United 93 four minutes after it had already crashed so there was a significant discrepancy there our
Report highlighted that uh but I think in looking back from 20 years I mean the the report uh outlined several major reforms uh of Emergency Management that that could be undertaken um most of them have been um we recommended the adoption of the incident command system which which establishes unified command in in
The in the event of a kinetic event um and that that’s been adopted pretty widely we recommended that um that a standard of care be adopted for private sector companies um uh that would expose them to liability um if if they if they did not have some kind of preparation
Ations in place um for an emergency like 9911 one of the things our interviews disclosed was that the companies uh that did have some plans in place and it had drilled for for having to evacuate the towers um their employees uh did better in terms of getting out and knowing what
They were doing than the ones which hadn’t uh so so those were adopted but the overarching conclusion of the report and this is what I think resonates today uh is is that America had an obligation to do two things strategically one degrade the capacity of al-Qaeda and similar um terrorist organizations to uh
To strike at our homeland in in a major way like 911 uh and two um we had to win the the war the Battle of ideas the Battle of ideologies and you know I think what’s what’s happened over the 20 years and this is a generalization but
But some of the tactics that we employed to address the first issue to degrade the terrorist capability have compromised our ability to win the second the second phase which is the Battle of ideas there are parts of the commission’s report that are almost painful to read in retrospect uh where
The report recommends that um that America you hold itself out as a moral example to the world and and promote values like um Civility and uh openness to opposing views and um and and open dialogue and and things like loyal opposition it’s painful to read now
Because it seems like an artifact from a long gone era I mean it’s those those qualities have vanished from our own politics and uh it makes it you know almost impossible for us to project that image when we’re not following it ourselves so following your service on
The 9911 commission you wrote the ground truth the story behind America’s defense on 911 which was named a New York Times notable book after its 2009 publication what are the key takeaways from that book and if you could similarly um answer whether those issues that you
Point out in the book have they been addressed so I had two U motivations for writing the book one was to highlight the um uh to highlight the uh misleading story uh that that the administration had told about the response because I thought that uh at some level that misleading uh account
Caused them not to not to address um some of the flaws in the response um you know the the way the response played out you had basically uh you had different levels of the government talking only to themselves um and and nothing really reaching the ground uh in a way that was
Operational uh and so what H what had to happen that day is everyone had to just sort of to just sort of abandon whatever plans they had for hijackings and for uh and for events like that uh and just improvise and I thought by not being forthright about what had happened it
Really prevented them from thinking more imaginatively about future crises and and then when Hurricane Katrina happened again it’s a completely different event um 911 was a surprise um it you know it was um caused the government to improvise Hurrican Katrina though was something the government had been
Planning for in fact when I got my FEMA certification the closing exercise was a category 3 hurricane hitting New Orleans and never forget it which is exactly what happened but when you studied Katrina when you looked at Katrina U the same the same mistakes um were recurring um the different levels of government
Were were the top officials were talking to themselves and they were directing things that they were assuming were reaching the ground in New Orleans and none of it was so the people on the ground in New Orleans much like we had to on 911 you know were essentially
Making it up as they went along uh and they had to improvise that response so um I thought that was a compelling comparison and um and it really shed light on I think a flaw in the way that that that plans are made for these kinds of of contingencies uh
That you you have to not only imagine the nature of the event itself you have to also imagine how you’re going to have to respond to it um and not just simply overlay uh an organizational chart you know on the on the response and say well
The president has to do this the vice president has to do this when in fact fact there is not going to be time um so that those are my motivations in writing that book and um to your question about you know has it has it been fixed you
Know I see some real parallels um in terms of the covid response just to give you just one the decision by the CDC in the spring of 2020 not to test people who had been exposed to infected people but who were not symptomatic and the reason for that they that they gave was
That you know typically in Corona viruses they’re not transmissible unless they’re symptomatic but as they later acknowledg Dr Redfield later atge they missed over half of the cases because of that decision and so you know just like the hijacking protocol on 911 uh called for you know called for a process of
Moving up the chain and made some assumptions about what hijackers were going to do it turned out not to be true the thought was that hijackers would uh seek to land the planes and have political demands met and and so when they turned off the transponders in the
Planes and disappeared into the radar clutter and then used them as Weapons the protocols that were in place were completely inadequate to the task well in a similar way once you haven’t once you’re not testing half of the infected people you know your your Protocols are
Just not simply not going to work and so it’s again it’s it’s the hardest thing in the world to to to imagine every possible scenario but when the consequences are so catastrophic I think it re it requires planners to consider who’s going to have to make the critical
Decisions if this happens and and to practice that so just so our audience is aware I do see the Q&A popping up there is a lot of overlap with the questions that I’ve prepared so I’m interspersing uh as we go along can you explain uh for our audience how the terror threat has
Evolved since 911 is the US prepar to prevent and or mitigate these threats um you know I’ve got questions popping up you know with the 20th anniversary coming up is there a threat of another 911 style attack on the United States in your opinion well so uh you know I think it’s
It’s absolutely true that the threat posed by Al-Qaeda itself has been significantly degraded they still exist um as an organization they would certainly like to come back to the strength that they had uh at 911 but I think that their you know their top leadership has been eliminated in in the
Person of Osama bin Laden and and so so that that threat is I think degraded to an extent the Isis threat um I think has been degraded to an extent but the ideologies are still out there and they still have adherence and there and we shouldn’t kid ourselves that there
Aren’t people uh organizing to try to to to hurt us I think I think law enforcement and our um armed services have done have done a terrific job in improving uh communication among agencies and in their their capacity to interdict these threats as they arise but I think the overall threat picture
Is more complex because not only do we have not only do we have um uh islamist terrorist groups um that are still out there and still would like to do us harm but we also uh we also have seen the rise of domestic extremist groups you know fueled and accelerated by social
Media and um and they also POS a threat both on the extreme left and on the extreme right ironically I don’t know if anyone saw these reports but some of the far right extremist groups were actually applauding the Taliban U because they act actually share some of their social
Agenda um so I think the threat is more complex now and will require law enforcement to be and the government to be very Nimble in trying to to cope with them um and the the accelerant of social media is something that has emerged in the last few years where it’s so much
Easier now for like-minded extremists to find each other and that’s a that’s a Troublesome development and I’m not sure that you can fix it simply by deplatforming people because they go can go to the dark web they can they can become encrypted and then they might
Even be harder to track um so I think we’re much better prepared for a major terrorist attack um than we were but we’re operating in a much more complex uh threat environment than we were so let’s turn to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan by some estimates the US has
Spent over $2.3 trillion on the war in Afghanistan over the last 20 years those costs include tens of billions of dollars to train and equip Afghan Security Forces who collapsed within days under Taliban pressure what are your thoughts on the length of time the US spent in Afghanistan should we have
Remained there for 20 years or should we have left after Osama Bin Laden was captured and killed in 2011 what are your thoughts well I think the nation building that in which we engaged and you can second guess it now obviously because it didn’t work uh but the nation
Building in which we engaged was was really a part of our effort to address that second strategic prong in other words if we could if we could stand up some a a model of of democracy and promoting women’s rights and and education and in a in a place like
Afghanistan um it would go a long way toward winning that war of ideas is I think the I think the level of corruption was um was underrated but I also I also am mindful of General Petraeus who I saw interviewed recently who uh took sharp exception to um uh to
The administration statement that the you know the Afghans weren’t fighting for their country um you know General Petra’s point was that we had you know little more than a garison there in recent years and um and they had lost tens of thousands of people fighting for their country in his view um our
Decision to withdraw air support uh was was um undermined their own confidence in their ability to to to counteract the Taliban and our and our uh the prior administration’s decision to negotiate with the Taliban and not include the Afghan government could only have served to undermine the people’s faith in that
Government so it’s an it’s not resolved in my mind you know whether it was a whether it was a waste I mean I think I think there has to be over a 20-year period And I think you’re seeing that in some of the protests that are being suppressed now but particularly among
The women of Afghanistan there’s going to be a lot of resistance going back to the way things were and I don’t know what form that’s going to take and how effective it will be uh but I think that that’s a that’s something that we should support and and you know John McCain
Gave a speech I maybe 10 and 12 years ago where he said look if you’re going to go if you’re going to Nation build in a place like Afghanistan you can you can’t affect those kinds of cultural changes in a decade or two you know and
In his view I think he said it would take a century or more uh and maybe that calculation would have if they had thought in terms of a century they might not have decided to Nation build there but I think it was I think it was done
For the right motives um but it turned out you know not to work and I think the end the end game was um very hard to watch um for those who for those who were there on 911 and um knew that the Taliban was just you know actively supporting Al-Qaeda and thumbing their
Nose at at our attempts to to stop alqaeda U so uh My Hope Is that 20 years of living in the mountains of Pakistan um may have may have soured some of them on the idea of becoming of harboring terrorists but um but I think it was I
Think the nation building was too expensive and uh it’s very unfortunate how it ended and I hope my hope is that is that a positive change can still happen in Afghanistan I don’t think anybody believes the Taliban will be an election there so the question is going
To be will the will the people tolerate their rule again and that’s an open question so a recent New York Times opinion piece argues that America’s military is way too big the author claims that America’s military dominance hasn’t yielded the promised results citing not only the current withdrawal from Afghanistan but expensive decades
Long comp conflicts in Vietnam Lebanon and Iraq among others what are your thoughts should we reimagine the role of the United States military uh should the US revert back to a more isolationist approach to foreign policy and avoid entanglements overseas is that even possible I guess that’s another way of
Of of asking the question what’s our place in the world my own view is that isolation ism is impossible for us simply because our our our economic interests are worldwide and so our presence is going to be worldwide even if our our government is is trying to is
Trying to deny it and and that worldwide presence makes us a potential Target you know did we need 700 military bases around the world on 911 I don’t know how many we have now you know probably not I think um there there’s a there’s a there’s a sense in which once you become
So big you you you lose your ability to be nimble and to and to react the threats as they evolve and there’s also the sense that I’ve gotten doing some work in the Middle East with um General Jones um number of years ago and also in
Armenia um that we we turn to the military too quickly uh in situations where soft power would be uh just as effective if not more so and that and that may require a Readjustment reallocation of resources but I think we have to have a strong military I think
We have to have a military that evolves with the times um one of the one of the Curiosities about about our military that that we found in in the 911 Commission investigation is we have some of the most advanced technology in the world um and spend a lot of money on it
Um but you know on on the day of 911 in the in the National Command Center they were using you know they were using like old-fashioned phones I mean you know rotary phones I mean so so right sizing the military is a challenge in you know
In any era um but I think I think a some kind of realignment towards soft power is probably in our interest so before we get to audience questions I want to make sure we touch on your transition to Ruckers uh you’ve continued develop project to develop projects and programs
Here at Ruckers that impact National Security uh so I’m thinking about the minor and critical intelligence studies through our political science department you played a major role in securing the Federal grant funding to support the creation of programs to educate the next generation of diverse highly skilled students who are thinking about career
In the intelligence community in light of all of the knowledge and expertise that you’ve gained since 911 what advice you have for students who are pursuing this path and thinking about careers in National Security I think the I think the advice that I would have is to be critical you
Know we’ve had we’ve had intelligence failures of major proportions in the past and blunders and and um and we’ve done some things that that cut against that that second strategic uh strategic objective which is you know to make sure that the American idea is the idea that
Prevails so one of the purposes in in developing this minor was a to make the intelligence communities more diverse than they have been but also to educate students to go in with a critical eye toward what they’re asked to do and to and to challenge some of the assumptions
That may have been made in the past uh one of the one of the sort of um harrowing moments after 9911 was the realization um after several conference calls with you know people very high up that they really didn’t know a whole lot and how is that possible given the
Investment of trillions of dollars in this far-flung early warning system that was supposed to to be in place so we’d never have another surprise attack like Pearl Harbor you know how do we know so little and look it’s intelligence is a very hard it’s a hard field it’s a
Hard area to get into uh because you’re constantly having to balance American ideals with the need for inform information and that and that’s a challenge and and and we have too often in the past you not met that challenge correctly but but I think we do need to
Know uh who our enemies are and we do need to know about people who want to attack our country and and so I think it’s an essential component uh and I think we can improve it uh by making it younger by making it more diverse and by
Making the people who enter it um you know view the assignment with some degree of skepticism so I’d like to turn to the work that you’ve done with the mill Center for Community protection and resilience you’ve helped bring vulnerable communities from across the globe and the police who serve them
Together in an effort to better protect those communities from targeted violence and mass casualty attacks tell us what role the Miller Center was able to play in building these relationships where they didn’t necessarily exist and how it’s created safer communities so thank you for that question the Miller Center really the
Premise of it is that um we have now we now live in a world uh of uh many diaspora communities um you know historically the Jewish the Jewish Community was the signature diaspora Community the original one uh but the demographic trend in the world is that for more and more um people from
Different countries uh to be mobile and and so you’re looking at a world where some estimates are a billion people in the world are living in in Nations where they were not born um and and so that over time over history it’s shown that that that makes them vulnerable and
They’re seen as the other uh by the larger community and and law enforcement reflects the larger Community um and and the majority community and so um the thought was that you know we would go into places where there World these vulnerable communities vulnerable populations and uh through our
Connections with law enforcement try to build a bridge uh between communities so we so we did a lot of work in Europe early on I had a sabatical where I was teaching at the University of Paris and and so we we did a study of the security measures that the Jewish communities in
Europe had undertaken they’re the original diaspora Community they have survived in a very hostile environment for centuries so the thought was you know what what they’re doing is something that could be a model for others and as a consequence of that work when the terrorist attacks happened in
Brussels at the subway and the airport um we were actually invited in by the by the Brussels uh police and the Jewish and Muslim Community to come in and try to and try to start building that bridge um of communication very similar to the situation that existed in New Jersey
Back in the 90s where just over time um relations had had deteriorated and and there wasn’t a lot of communication going on it’s building that communication that is the vital step uh and so for us to be successful in any in any situation there has to be a
Willingness there has to be a recognition of the Need For Change that’s that’s what happened in Brussels you know you know once the attacks happened in the subway and at the airport I think they knew that they had a problem and and um so we uh we went
Over there and we recorded uh nearly 30 hours of interviews of you know people on the street from kids in the in the largely Muslim M beak District uh to commanders of the police and and um and and we basically interwove those videos into a sort of provocative Workshop that
We put on first just for the police so that they would have a chance to see what the community thought of them and what they thought of themselves and then ultimately uh in the community center in molenbeek with the police and Community together and so we started building um
Those bridges and since then you know we had a situation in Whitefish Montana a few years ago where there was a threatened Neo-Nazi March and um and Paul Goldenberg from our our Center who was also at the time in charge of the um secure communities Network for the
Jewish Community went out there and um and they were petrified uh and so we developed from for white fish uh some resilience training that brought together the the very small Police Department that they had you know Mak a dozen people uh with Statewide law enforcement with um the the regional
Hospitals that might be needed in in the event of an emergency and again developed a workshop for them and so there that kind of work uh it builds those bidges of communication that offers the best hope uh for vulnerable populations moving forward because they’re everywhere now we’ve also
Visited the seat community in Milwaukee which was the victim of a mass shooting and um you know churches down south as part of a DHS uh task force where there have been Church burnings in in Mississippi and and um uh so that the thought is that you know as a
Demographics of the world change so has to our our approach to policing vulnerable populations and we have to be better than we’ve been in the past uh one additional question for you about the Miller Center since March 2020 and our transition to remote learning the Miller Center made a decision to
Pivot to more research based efforts uh including an ongoing collaboration with the network contagion Research Institute to help profile and report on emerging threats of extremism and Terror forming on social media as well as the creation of a pandemic task force to execute in real time and ongoing strategic
Assessment of the US response to the pandemic at both Federal and State levels can you tell us a bit more about the current state of those efforts yeah so so our uh our work in the the Miller Center had been and this was an understanding from the beginning
That we were not interested uh we were not interested in in conference world so to speak we’d all done that before um you go travel around and it’s a lot of fun and you you give the same speech in several different conferences and and not a whole lot changes we wanted to be
We wanted to be a place that would actually go into communities and make a difference on the ground um in individual circumstances um obviously once Co hit and we had the lock down we had to we had to Pivot in some way and I had gotten to know uh Dr Joel finklestein um
At Eagleton we had we had done a um a session there about the challenge that the military and law enforcement face uh from social media extremist recruitment uh from among their ranks and Joel presented at that meeting and we talked afterwards and and and sort of struck up
A a friendship and a partnership and we wrote uh a couple of you know groundbreaking reports I from about a year and a half ago the first one on the bugaloo boys um February I think before the lockdown actually happened was our first report and then once lockdown
Happened we our work became more intense and um we wrote a report about uh the qanon phenomenon in June of 2020 forecasting its potential for violence uh for violent conduct and um and we since co-authored um and worked on reports uh about far-left extremism uh in Portland and Seattle and in other
Areas of other country on the rise of anti-asian hate and our focus in all this is the abuse of social media uh and its role as an accelerant to extremist conduct um and extremist beliefs and and extremist products because when you’re doing this research and you’re you’re
You know you’re researching the boo boys which which who fancy Hawaiian shirts and and some crazy patches suddenly you have ads popping up on your computer for Hawaiian shirts and for camouflage and for crazy military equipment so the application the overarching problem here is the application of of commercial
Algorithms to political speech uh has been truly noxious development and and um e-commerce works because they they drive you further and further in the direction of your preferences but apply to politics uh driving you further and further in that direction drives you more and more to the extremes and that’s
That’s a structural problem in our country that has that has accelerated the polarization that was already happening so um so that’s been a uh a truly fruitful um partnership we’ve had with Joel who’s now a he was at Princeton University when we started he’s now a senior research fellow at at
The Miller Center and the other major research undertaking we took when we pivoted was um under directorship of Dr Ron Clark to to basically do a state-by-state um Governor by Governor assessment of the co response and um we’re a team from Eagleton in the center for the American Governor uh is writing
A book on the co response and we’re using uh among other sources uh that data uh set that we’ve been compiling and we’re we’re closer to to posting it online we we are still refining it but but you know what what it what it shows
Is again uh coming back to the idea of of Affairs of the imagination I mean we know we’ve known for decades that pandemics don’t respect political boundaries um I think the Assumption has always been that you could contain it within a state and so therefore the governor is the right person to be
Making these calls and that’s the model that we have in the US but what happens when you lose containment which we did instantly when we failed to test um what happens you lose containment is you have 50 different Governors making 50 different decisions uh and absence of coordination and um and that’s plagued
Our response um really from from March of last year once containment was lost you know it doesn’t make any sense to have 50 different approaches and Dr fouchy has actually said that um at the beginning of 2021 but my question is okay if we knew that then why wasn’t
That reality baked into the planning for a pandemic like once you lose containment shouldn’t the model change and we’re stuck with a model that doesn’t work um in a pandemic that’s out of control thanks for answering my questions um I’ve been monitoring our audience questions as we’ve gone along
Uh and I’ve gotten a question about the events that took place on the capital on January 6th so do you see any parallels between the lessons that we presumably learned on 911 and the events that took place on January 6th well you know without I don’t know I don’t know much
More than anyone else just having watched it and been completely shocked by the violence um and by the this the spectacle of of you know American citizens breaking into our own capital and and putting up a Gallows with a noose um supposedly for vice president Pence when he wouldn’t suspend the um
Certification of the election you know some of the articles that have appeared uh since then um look if you just in terms of calling up the national guard the protocol they had in place would have required four different sign offs well you don’t you’re not going to have
Time in a real event to have Nancy Pelosi and and other lead and Mitch McConnell and everybody sign off on calling the National Guard that’s got to be somebody’s responsibility if if there’s a mob of people trying to break into the capital um so I I think there are some emergency response type
Parallels to to the 911 event you know we’ll never know whether the ultimate Target of United 9 was the capital or the White House I I tend to think it’s the capital because that’s an easier Target um but it’s ironic that you know the capital was not attacked by
Foreigners it was attacked by it was attacked that day by Americans and um um that seemed to me the closest thing to a sacrilege that we have in our country is is is doing violence to our capital and really something that um should be a source of Shame for people in my
Opinion so I’ve had a few few questions about uh the unlawful surveillance of Muslims uh in the aftermath of 911 do you have any thoughts on that or anything you can share with the audience well I think you know as it’s part of it’s part of um the answer I gave
Earlier that I understand because I was part of law enforcement the fear right and the the the total loss of confidence uh in our intelligence capability and the idea that we didn’t know who might be a friend and who might be a foe um and so I think that in response to
That fear um there was an overreaction and um and I think it did it did tremendous damage um uh to relationships um between and among American Muslims and law enforcement I think a lot has been done to uh uh to improve that over the years but there’s no question that
In the early days it was very difficult I mean one of one of my missions in the immediate aftermath the weeks after after 911 uh was you know I think that Bob clear who was the US attorney at the time and myself and Kevin Donovan from the FBI and Carson Dunbar from State
Police I think we visited every mosque at least in the northern half of the state and and maybe in the whole state uh and we had basically two uh messages um one we are not going to tolerate vigilante violence and there was in the immediate after after 911 several
Incidents um I think a a there was a seek individual who was killed in in Arizona and there were reports of attacks and um I actually went to the length of recording a public service announcement basically saying we are not tolerating violence against religious groups of any
Type uh in response to this uh but the second part of the message was you know we need your help we clearly didn’t know what was going on and and um and you know that’s on us but it’s also on you that um you know we need your help in in
Identifying people who might be threats to our country um and I think some fruitful relationships you know did arise out of those those meetings and um and I think a lot has been done to to sort of amarate that uh that conduct but there’s no question that there was some
Overreach and it was the product of fear and ignorance it was not knowing what the next sh was going to be was there going to be on the second wave was there going to be uh was there going to be some other form of attack and as you
Recall within weeks of 911 the anthrax attacks happened and of course of course the BLS were mailed from from New Jersey so so we were in the center of that as well uh so uh and we didn’t not we didn’t know that the writer of those
Letters purported to be U uh an Al-Qaeda sympathizer uh so we did not know what the next attack was going to be and who the target was going to be we knew that they tried to decapitate our government and our financial system so they were they were making an existential threat
To the United States and I think the um uh the over that occurred was a consequence of that fear and ignorance so I think we have time for one more question uh and it’s a big one so I’ll leave you with this uh how can the extreme polarization and abundance of
Misinformation in our country be overcome what do you see as the future of our democracy I’m sorry I don’t mean that’s a serious question that doesn’t deserve a light-hearted response um so where do we start so I think um it starts with self-awareness you know people need to
Be aware that they are being manipulated and that and that there are a lot of interests that have an economic stake in driving us further apart and I would include social media I would include cable news I I would include uh journalists who get paid by The Click
Which which encourages them to write uh to write more and more extreme headlines and extreme stories because you know that drives how many clicks you’re going to get and you know it’s like rubbernecking on a highway you you know you you’re going to look at the accident
Right like watching a train wreck so I think it’s got to start with the the awareness that that we are being we are being manipulated and we have to get our information from more than one source um and we have to be critical of the
Sources that we do rely on I think that we need structural change um in terms of social media and maybe even um um cable news as well you know when radio came into existence there was a recognition of the dangers of it um in terms of propaganda and the Nazi regime in
Germany was the perfect example of that of how you could use a source of information to twist a population’s views and manipulate them and so in America there was there was a recognition that we needed to to regulate um broadcasting and so there was a fairness doctrine that was imposed
And and broadcast Outlets were obliged to uh to give multiple sides of a question with the Advent of cable news that went away and so uh you know where you had the networks which had which were required to give multiple points of view you now have you now have cable
News outlets which have no no such requirement and may pay lip service to it but they really don’t um and I I think it applies equally to the right and the left I think um they they have agendas there are stories you’ll see on one that you won’t see on the other for
Obvious reasons and and the American public needs to start getting outraged about that and to T to demand change um I think that’s the first step otherwise you know we’re going to have repeats every time there’s a election cycle we’re going to have a repeat of last
Year uh where one part’s feel like it was stolen uh even when it wasn’t even when even when you know the the margin of of difficult of of victory was pretty large um you have a lot of people believing that President Trump won that election and because they’re getting all
Their information from a narrow source and my you know my I think the most important thing the individuals can do is get your information from multiple sources I like The Economist I recommend it to students because even though it it’s sortly it’s it’s it leans I guess conservative they’re pretty balanced and
They usually call themselves out for their biases but Outlets like that um which are flagging in in public interest and I think what has to happen for our democracy to survive is um we have to re we have to redefine a center uh that will hold because we if we will not
Survive if if if everything is left to the extremes of of both parties and and um I think that’s our challenge I think we’re at a critical point in the history of our democracy and and the next decade will really determine which way we go
And I I hope it’s back in the direction of the uh practices that that the 9911 report um thought we should highlight you open exchange of ideas um uh Civic engagement at every level um and um and respect for people with whom we disagree the Eagleton Institute of
Politics is a nonpartisan Research Unit of recers University we thank the School of Arts and Sciences for partnering with us on the content of this episode This Moment In democracy was made possible in part by the generosity of Eagleton supporters to support our work click the link in the description learn more about
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