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get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span powered by cable. ow with the former 9/11 commission staff member and a current center for strategic and international studies transnational threats senior fellow, daniel byman. let's start with what you think is the legacy of 9/11 and the broader war on terror. guest: the 9/11 attacks shaped a generation and had a profound impact on u.s. foreign policy and also u.s. policy at home. when we think of foreign policy, two things stand out when is the

work in afghanistan and the overthrow of taliban after 9/11 and the 2003 invasion and occupation of iraq. the second was politically made possible in an environment where americans were thinking about terrorism and concerned and iraq became enmeshed in that. it also had an impact on u.s. day-to-day foreign policy around the world where the primary issue wasn't russia or china, the primary issue was would you work with the united states against al qaeda and starting 10 or 15 years later, would you work with the united states against the islamic state. it a profound affect. -- it had a profound effect. the war in have ash in

afghanistan joined with the u.s. withdraw. the best majority of americans see the invasion of iraq as a mistake. it shaped the attitude peered the costs came in trillions of dollars and also american lives because many americans are very leery of intervention, especially in the middle east. the attacks shaped america at home and created an environment of concern and fear about the next terrorist attack. right after 9/11, the bush administration was operating with concern that the next attack was right around the corner and many of the policies put in place were put in place with that in mind and this shaped things like various fbi and broader government programs to go after suspected terror suspects in the united states and shaped americans' attitudes

toward immigration, especially around muslim and arab countries. so the effects shaped a generation but it is important to look back because i think we are moving forward both in policy -- foreign policy and domestic. host: you talked about how this shaped americans' fear of a terrorist attack. do you think americans are safer now from international terrorism than where we were on 9/11? guest: yes, and let me explain why using the 9/11 attack as an example. if you go back to what we now know about 9/11, it was an attack that was plotted from safe havens in pakistan and afghanistan, where al qaeda was able to really gather. in the 1990's, thousands trained

in al qaeda training camps and they were able to take what they thought was the best of these to use for terrorist operations. the leaders had a safe haven. individuals would come and go from these areas without disruption. and then for 9/11 it self, they were able to recruit people not only from the arab world but also from germany and they were able to travel to afghanistan and they subsequently held meetings in other countries without interference. and then they traveled to the united states, where there was at best a very confused and limited effort to try to discover jihadist linked terrorists in the united states. five years later, we see all of that has changed. the haven in afghanistan and pakistan was disrupted by the

invasion. havens around the world are under pressure, this could be in the form of drone strikes taking out terrorist leaders as happened a year ago with the killing of the al qaeda leader. and also in the form of special operations happening around the world to go after suspected terrorists. the united states is going after various groups linked to al qaeda and the islamic state and there is an intelligence campaign, where the u.s. government is coordinating with governments around the world to put pieces of the puzzle together. when people go to and from war zones they are on the screen and being watched. and the united states, a much more aggressive effort from the fbi in particular to go after suspected jihadist.

so it becomes much harder for a group like al qaeda. i want to be clear we are talking probabilities. the chances of success for a group like al qaeda to do a spectacular terrorist attack in the united states especially are greatly diminished. host: let's talk about the role of the patriot act and government surveillance in general. guest: after 9/11, one of the concerns the u.s. government had was that there were large numbers of americans and in this case american muslim -- muslims linked to al qaeda and trained and that concern too. to be false that this was an operation perpetrated by people coming from the american muslim community turned out to be exceptionally loyal to work

closely with the fbi. but the changes that the patriot act and other legislation did were actually profound and in many ways quite necessary. a lot of the u.s. apparatus for surveillance was dated. to pick one example, it used to be that when you had a warrant you got it before cell phones, it used to be that if i had one own. but people have multiple cell phones and you can easily change numbers. part of the changes in legislation were just catching up but a lot of changes also concerned that access the government had to information gleaned by american technology companies. as we all know, these are giant companies and they have huge rings of information. the legislation was designed to give the government easy access to that.

also related to the changes was there was a lot of effort at the fbi and apartment of homeland security to put resources to the problem of individuals in the united states who might be linked to terrorist. there were people who analyzed the information. this meant there were a lot of programs in place that enabled the government to get more information on americans much quicker and to keep it in ways that would help u.s. government go after suspected terrorists. host: section 702 will expire at the end of the year and there is a reauthorization fight going on. explain what it is and what does it do and where are we with the reauthorization? guest: section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act was a large

change that enable the u.s. government to collect information on foreigners living abroad without a warrant or any sort of oversight if there was a national security issue. this has allowed the function of vast amounts of information. what makes this controversial is that foreigners living abroad might be in contact with americans. and so that percent abroad might have say 100 phone calls and in 90 of them are to other foreigners but tend might be to americans. and this sort of collection is called incidental collection, not the target. if the goal had been initially two after the 10 americans, the u.s. government would need to go to a judge and get a warrant. however, there is now concern because those 10 americans keeping with that example are now in contact with someone who is on the radar screen of american intelligence,

presumably for some concern, let's assume terrorism in our case area 702 is incredibly powerful because it is the government access to this information and under certain safeguards the government can query about those americans who showed up on the radar screen, look at their names and social security numbers and whatever mission -- information they have and learn more about them. this is extremely controversial right now and i think for good reason. it is set to expire at the end of this year and must be renewed by congress. it has been renewed in the past usually in a bipartisan way because it is so incredibly important for both intelligence in general and counterterrorism. it gives a huge amount of information cap on the unsuspecting terrorists but on unknown people who might be linked

ed is finding someone who you do not even know is a danger. this often reveals it but this has tremendous civility for abuse. so instead of going to a judge to go after an american and getting a warrant, that the government instead uses this ability to have a link to a foreign terrorist suspect and avoids the judge through 702 authority. and there have been abuses that are clearly inappropriate depending on what side of the political spectrum you are on there have been reports this has been misused to go after people in black lives matter and to go after people involved in the january 6 insurrection. in these sorts of cases, the fbi

should have gone to a judge to get approval rather than use 702. the fbi claims mistakes have been made but they have put in significant safeguards and that in recent years it is the numbers of queries that have gone down 93%, an extremely large numbers of the safeguards are having an impact but there is the question of whether there should be further restrictions on the types of inquiries done on american citizens that must have some degree of judicial approval. this is an example of broad power given to the government in the years after 9/11 that is being considered in a different light. host: if you would like to weigh in, we have our guest until the end of this program, a little before 9:00 eastern. the lines are bite region, (202) 748-8000 in the eastern or central time zones, (202)

748-8001 if you are in mountain or pacific. outside the united states, call up on (202) 748-8002. you were a special staff member on the 9/11 commission good can you remind viewers of what the commission concluded about what happened that day, intelligence failures and the recommendations? guest: mission had a number of recommendations, some related to the threat itself, urging the united states to focus not just on terrorism in general but instead on al qaeda. and rather than treat this as a broad danger with enemies everywhere but a lot of the response concerned integration. one of the problems in the pre-9/11 era was the distinction between threats at home and threats abroad. it seemed like a clean bureaucratic line where the fbi

were focused at home and place like the cia and national focused abroad and there would be some sort of handoff. but with the 9/11 attack showed that sort of distinction doesn't work. you had a group based in afghanistan and pakistan but operating in the united states and there was concern there were terrorist networks in the united states that were responding to foreign direction here one of the goals was to integrate foreign and domestic intelligence here that was done to a fair degree. at 702 is one example, where there was greater power to go abroad and individual suspected of terrorism abroad to investigating individuals at home. they were designed to integrate a wide range of terrorism and try to bring together people from different iraq were seized to work together more effectively. one of the hopes is better

foreign and better abroad coordination. related to that was better data sharing in general. one of the problems the 9/11 investigations found was that the fbi in particular was often not fully sharing information. let's fair to the fbi, there were parts of this that were bureaucratic and they had different field offices that often were keeping information to themselves and then the fbi as a whole was often not sharing formation with other parts of the government in a timely way. at the time the fbi had very bad information systems and was partly a technique -- technical issue there there was also emphasis going back to the 1990's and looking at things like waco where the fbi efforts were seen by many americans as abusive. there is concerned that they

should not be sharing information. it should be treated as widely shared but closely guarded. the 9/11 attacks show that has consequences for national security as well. and another recordation was on foreign policy that counterterrorism be elevated as an issue of importance that shaped american foreign policy with china, and the russian's rural invasion of ukraine, but with after 9/11 and the islamic state there was a strong sense that this is the primary foreign policy threat and american needs to optimize itself to respond.

host: standby because we are going to show the begin of the ceremony happening right now in new york city at around zero. [bagpipes playing] [reading names]

host: at is the beginnings of the ceremony happening right now in new york city at ground zero, the reading of the names. if you would like that, it is over on c-span2 right now. you can catch it on c-span.org and on our reit mobile adl app. we are going to go back to daniel byman. we will start taking calls from caller: good morning. 9/11 first responder and got disabled from the events of that day. this is a day for me never to forget. when the planes hit the towers and the towers went down, i was there within 24 hours.

people were running all over. it is really rough. i work 16 hour shifts with the army national guard. they packed us in rooms of 25 people in a room. we didn't have time to take showers. we were so exhausted. it was such a sad day. i also worked the pile. the body parts total in the tens of thousands. there are things of like to see happen. i would like to see those who finance this to pay to the victims and first responders. i would like the airline companies to pay their part. they walked away. the third thing i would like to happen is i would like to see all the federal funding that has

been given it out, to stop giving it to the lawyers and doctors and give it to the first responders. i worked at homeland security. i've had plenty of briefings and i understand the world trade center is a financial center that was part of the port authority. i understand they moved into singapore and i understand it is hardly economic structure. saudi arabia has not been our friend. they have been cutting production with russia to hurt us. i think they need to start paying these families. host: what do you think of that? guest: let me begin by saying thank you. one thing i think all americans learned or relearned was how much we rely on our first responder community for so many things and to see the heroism of people like you and many people

view worked with, even many years later is still incredibly moving to me. this was the terrible attack but many of the people who did the most to respond in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy are suffering health effects and psychological effects and not getting the support they need. when we talk about heroes is often involved in rhetoric but in practice we need to do more. on saudi arabia i have a slightly different view than the caller. the situation is quite complex. the saudi arabian government did not finance the 9/11 attacks and repeated investigations have shown that. al qaeda itself. consider a support from wealthy -- itself got considerable support from wealthy citizens.

saudi arabia failed to crack down on the danger. there is good news, wherein post 9/11, especially after 2003 when there began to be attacks in the kingdom, saudi arabia became much more aggressive about terrorism financing but it has a lot to go. we saw that when the islamic state emerge when there was funding from states and this is outrageous. part of the response from the government is to ensure that people under their jurisdiction are behaving appropriately. in my view, the appropriate response is u.s. pressure on saudi arabia to stop terrorism financing and there have been some good works but more needs to be done. of course funding point, but it

has many differences with the united states. we have seen this on fresh and we need to recognize that the u.s. and saudi relationship will be complex for we should also recognize there are significant differences in the united states and saudi arabia will also be on front sides of important issues. host: john is in germantown, go ahead. caller: i think the best thing that ever happened with the whole situation in the middle east was when president trump started drilling for oil and drilled and drilled and drilled and took us off the saudi oil. i do think the saudis were involved in 9/11. the prince was the bad man gave the money to the pilots who flew into the buildings.

now i believe he is the king of saudi arabia. the families tried to sue for information 9/11. they were rebuffed by their own government. now the saudis want to take the world off the petrodollar which is the u.s. dollar and go to some other currency. well, guess what, we fought a lot of wars to defend that. host: we are running low on time. guest: the saudi government was not funding 9/11. there were individual saudi's who played a role but the government did not. more broadly, i do think the united states needs to recognize that the energy market overall is something that has tremendous national security vulnerabilities and present

buying has encouraged a wide range of alternative energies is something we cannot only do for the environment but for national security. host: he is the former 9/11 commission staff member and also at the center for strategic and international studies. >> our coverage continues this afternoon with president biden eaking from a jot base in anchorage, alaska. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? no, it is way more than that. >> comcast is creating wi-fi

enabled area so low income families can get the tools they ed to be ready for anything. >> comcast support c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> u.s. defense secretary general lloyd austin and joint chiefs of staff chair general mark milley reflect on the 22nd anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks. the remarks came during a remembrance ceremony at the pentagon where american airlines flight 170 struck the southwest corner of the building. 64 people on board the plane and 125 people in the pentagon died that day.