steven brill contributes to "the atlantic" and is the author of this month's cover story, "are we any safer." and jeffrey goldberg writes for the atlantic and he's also a visiting fellow at the carnegie endowment for international peace. steve, i want the start with you. article, "are we any safer," and i apologize, but can you boil it down into an answer? >> in only 20 words. >> well, we're along stronger because of the work of the people like fran did and tens of thousands of others and the trillions of dollars we spent. we strengthened our defense, but the nature of the threat has changed and evolved in a way that arguably in many ways makes us less safe. adapting to that environment that steve describeed? >> you'll appreciate, john, what happens is we never adapt fast enough. as you heard from the chairman of the intelligence committee, the threat has metastasized and spread. we have more bad guys in more different places now. that's a significant threat. you add to that the internet and the radicalization that happens over the internet, even very late to that game as a government

steven brill contributes to "the atlantic" and is the author of this month's cover story, "are we any and jeffrey goldberg writes for the atlantic and he's also a visiting fellow at the carnegie endowment for international peace. steve, i want the start with you. you worked for a year on this article, "are we any safer," and i apologize, but can you boil it down into an answer? >> in only 20 words. >> well, we're along stronger because of the work of the people like fran did and tens of thousands of others and the trillions of dollars we spent.

our inspiration for this morning comes from this month's cover story by journalist steven brill. he spent a year investigating the $1 trillion spent by the government to defend against terrorist attacks. before we dive into our state of national security and the cost of protecting the nation we want to acknowledge the profound loss that occurred on that beautiful september morning. nearly 3,000 innocent people died that day, including hundreds of first responders and here is the story of two of them. >> there were a couple of days each year you were allowed to take your children to work, and joe loved it. that was his birthday present, that he would spend the night in the flyhouse. we'd have a cake, and the guys i worked with, they would take a milk container and cut out the f facsimile of the building on top of the cake, light it up, tell joe to put it out, he'd throw a pot of water on it, the birthday cake was a little soggy but this is what he wanted. he started dating a young lady whose father was a police officer and he come home one day and says "i'm taking the police test.

our inspiration for this morning comes from this month's cover story by journalist steven brill. he is here with us this morning. he spent a year investigating the $1 trillion spent by the government to defend against terrorist attacks. before we dive into our state of national security and the cost of protecting the nation, we also want to acknowledge the profound loss that occurred on that beautiful september morning. here's the story of two of them. ♪ ♪ >> there were a couple of days each year you were allowed take your children to work, and joe loved it. that was his birthday present. that he would spend the night. we would have a cake, and the guys that i work with, they would take a milk container, and they would cut out the facsimile of a building, and they would put it on the top of the cake, and then they would light it up, and they would tell joe to put it out, and he would throw a pot of water on it. the birthday cake was a little soggy, but this is what he wanted. joe started dating a young lady whose father was a police officer, and he came home one day and said i'm

steven brill for his enormously important reporting and for allowing this gathering to happen as we try to take account of where we are 15 years after 9/11. we covered a lot of territory this morning. former secretary of homeland security began the day by telling us that we have to accept the reality that there is a global scourge but that we also must put that in perspective. and he affirmed that he believed that we are, indeed, safer today than we were 15 years ago, and there was clearly not universal agreement about that. we heard the concern about the rapid expansion of the ideological battlefield abroad and about homegrown terrorism at home. we heard about the desperate need to streamline congressional oversight of homeland security and the warning that we have to imagine the unimaginable, the danger of dirty bombs, about bioterror. we heard about the threat to civil liberties and how we are dehumanizing whole groups of people in the name of national security. there was optimism. i think we all heard it, from former senator joe lieberman, who asserted that reforms that exist today,