The Intelligence Reforms We Still Need

T wenty-five years ago, Americans woke to a beautiful September morning. Husbands and wives kissed goodbye, parents hugged their children, and millions headed to work. My former colleague on the Senate Banking Committee Neil Levin was one of them.

Neil had a breakfast meeting that morning at Windows on the World, more than 100 stories above Manhattan in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It was a place he had been many times before.

At 8:46 a.m., everything changed.

By the end of that day, nearly 3,000 innocent people had been murdered in New York, at the Pentagon, and in a field outside Shanksville, Pa. Neil was one of them.

As we remember Neil and the thousands of others we lost on that dark day, we honor them by applying the lessons we learned in its aftermath and making sure America is prepared for the threats we face now.

That responsibility brought me back to Shanksville recently with my colleagues on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. At the Flight 93 National Memorial, we released a year-long bipartisan review of the intelligence reforms made after September 11 and what more must be done to protect America in the years and decades ahead.

Our review found that the reforms enacted after September 11 made America safer. The 9/11 Commission identified intelligence agencies operating in silos, critical information that was not being shared, and, most importantly, a “failure of imagination” that prevented our government from fully recognizing the threat developing before us. The reforms that followed broke down barriers between agencies and made America far better at identifying and disrupting terrorist threats.

But our report found that we have not fully applied those same lessons to the counterintelligence threats facing America today.

China presents perhaps the clearest example. The FBI now opens a new counterintelligence case tied to China roughly every twelve hours, more than 700 a year. One witness told our committee the Bureau is years behind, with “no hope of gaining” on the backlog, a stark warning that the threat is outpacing our ability to confront it.

Chinese cyber campaigns have penetrated American telecommunications and critical infrastructure, including water and energy systems and our electrical grid. A coordinated attack could disrupt hospitals and emergency services, halt transportation, interfere with banking and payments, and paralyze communities far from any traditional battlefield.

Artificial intelligence raises the stakes further. Our report warns of potential “Black Swan” risks from AI, including the possibility that increasingly powerful models could help terrorists or hostile actors develop more destructive capabilities, including biological weapons.

Much of what our adversaries target, from telecommunications networks and power systems to technology, intellectual property, and supply chains, is owned or operated outside the federal government. Protecting it requires better intelligence-sharing and deeper cooperation with the private sector.

The threats have changed. Technology has changed. But one of the most important lessons of September 11 has not: America cannot afford another failure of imagination.

Our bipartisan report lays out 20 recommendations to apply the lessons that transformed counterterrorism after 9/11 to the threats we face today. We call for stronger counterintelligence capabilities, better information sharing across government, deeper partnerships with state and local law enforcement and the private sector, and an Intelligence Community better equipped to use and understand emerging technology.

In this regard, I have led on enhancing data sharing about encounters with persons on the “No Fly List” and the “Terrorist Watch List,” as well as designing a full civil defense approach to cyber threats, fully engaging public and private resources across our states.

Putting the report’s recommendations into practice requires action beyond our intelligence agencies. Congress must provide strong oversight and the authorities necessary to keep Americans safe. State and local partners need access to intelligence they can act on. American businesses must be better integrated into our national security efforts when their technology, infrastructure, and supply chains are being targeted by our adversaries.

Success against yesterday’s threats cannot become an excuse for complacency about the evolving threats we face today or those we may face tomorrow. Our report gives us a roadmap. Now we must act on it.

At the Flight 93 National Memorial, 40 wind chimes hang in the Tower of Voices, one for each hero we lost in that field. Neil’s name is etched in bronze at Ground Zero, alongside thousands of others who never made it home that beautiful fall day. We owe it to them, and to our children and grandchildren, to ensure America is prepared to confront the threats we face so that we never again pay the price for a failure of imagination.