Changes And Impacts Since The 9/11 Attacks
The morning of September 9, 2001 was the morning America would never be the same. That morning, nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists in total will board and hijack four commercial airplanes. Two planes of the four crashed in the World Trade Center in New York. The third plane will have crashed in the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane was planned to crash in Washington D.C., however the passengers fought off the hijackers and ended up crashing in a field in Pennsylvania. They were departing from Boston, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. This resulted in almost 3,000 people dying that day and 6,000 being injured.When those planes departed that’s when it all changed. Airports, airport security, our views on Muslims, Muslims feeling comfortable in our country, immigration and deportation, victims affected from it, lack of privacy, and lastly feeling safe wherever you go will change. The world before 2001 was different, terrorist attacks did exist however they were on a very small scale. 9/11 will forever be the kickoff to the majority of terrorist attacks after that. 9/11 impacted the emotional and physical safety of U.S. citizens. Because terrorist attacks have happened so much, it’s just the normal now. People are still affected from them and get a shock but it is not out of the ordinary. If 9/11 never happened we would live in a very different world than we do now.
Airport security before 9/11 was very secure but not as secure as we thought. Just a couple months after the attack, a new security requirement was established called, Transportation Security Administration, also known as TSA. The mission of TSA is to “Protect the nation's transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.” (Tsa.gov) There are also many things that were either changed or created. For example, identification requirements changed. You need to have an ID on you whether it’s a license or passport. All baggage you bring with you must be screened and you are not allowed any liquids over 3.4 ounces. If security guards have suspicions of you they can pat you down whenever they please however this is not required for most people. You are now typically required to take your shoes off when you go through the metal detectors. Lastly, you are required a ticket to get to any airline gate because having a ticket means you go through security and they want everyone going through security. Before this, if you wanted to meet someone and were picking them up you could just meet them at the gate with no ticket or being been through security now you can’t. According to businessinsider.com, security costs today are $7.4 billion a year.
Airports in general drastically changed after 9/11 too. Aside from losing fifty five billion dollars since the attacks they were already seeing a decline in fares. Because of this they have cut almost two hundred thousand jobs to ease the decline. This has forced many people to be laid off. Some airlines also cut a lot of destinations from their listings . They have even also cut millions of seats on flights. According to businessinsider.com, Delta Airlines dropped service to 24 tiny airports, and U.S. Airways almost completely stopped flights to and from Las Vegas by 40 percent. Strangely, “Fifty nine million extra bags were carried on this year.” (Businessinsider.com) Because of losing fifty five billion dollars since the attack customer’s experiences on flights weren’t as good as usual because of the cuts in varieties of food, the amount let on board, and customer service. After the attack there was 2.7 percent less passenger traffic on top of the recession in the early 2000s. Passenger traffic did not increase until two years later. Revenue was dropping also, twenty three billion was lost until 2003 came. Since the attack, “Oil prices have skyrocketed. The rising price of crude oil has made a heavy dent in the industry. As oil prices, and thus jet fuel prices, rose, a higher percentage of cost was relegated to buying jet fuel.” (Businessinsider.com)
Before the attack, we all looked at Muslims differently. A fraction of Americans saw Muslims as different people because of the way they physically looked. Another fraction didn’t pay any mind to them. “Because the terrorists responsible were linked to groups that claimed allegiance to their version of Islam, the tragedy launched the religion — which until then had been a little-understood minority faith in the US” (vox.com) A 2015 YouGov poll discovered that approximately 55% of Americans had a negative opinion of Islam. According to multiple polls since 9/11, “Twenty eight percent said they’d been looked at with suspicion, 21 percent said they’d been singled out by airport security, and 52 percent felt that government anti-terrorism policies put Muslims under increased surveillance.” (vox.com)
Being Muslim during all of this happening was not the best time. A Muslim American named, Waleed Shahid, told his story to a journalist for vox.com. He went on about how he grew up in Arlington where the Pentagon is located. He was in fifth grade when 9/11 happened. While in school that day, he got picked up early by his mother. On the way home there was police everywhere blocking off roads and his particular street was blocked off because there was a street off of that that was a straight shot toward Washington D.C. While she was driving and didn’t know what to do because their street was blocked off the mother and an officer nearby got into an argument. The officer then became very angry to the mother and ended up pulling his gun out at her. This was all happening while fifth grader, Waleed, was in the passenger seat of the car while his siblings were in the back. Nothing ended up happening with the officer, he ended up letting her go. When they finally got to their house somehow the mother told the kids to put on a movie assuming so the news couldn’t be on for the kids to see. Waleed remembers his mother crying about what had just happened with the officer. She then understood why it had happened. Waleed then says how strangely enough to him, his mother actually felt bad for the police officers. To give them a little support and trying to help a little, the mother brought all the police on her street McDonalds because they had been outside that whole morning. She also organized a candlelight vigil on their front lawn despite still being upset. Everyone started singing the National Anthem and when Waleed looked up and saw that his mother was singing too, he was shocked. He never knew she knew that until that moment. The reason the mother did everything that day with helping the police officers and doing a vigil despite being a victim of police was abuse was because she wanted to people to know that she was scared too and she wasn’t just Muslim she was Muslim American. She was basically saying whatever affects this country affects her too. This story shows that not all Muslims are out to get the US which we do know however a fraction of the population thinks otherwise.
Another story was published by vox.com about a black woman that is also identified as Muslim named, Shukri Olow. The way she heard about the attack was in the morning at her cousins house. She was in high school at the time and while she was eating breakfast all they could hear on the TV were the words “hijacker” and “plane.” She then came to find out what had happened and who committed the attack which was Islam. She talks about how it changes her life drastically. The way people treated her inside and outside school. She went to a predominantly white school at the time and her classmates would look at her differently, she would get in fights, and deal with people pulling off her hijab. Even the teachers there identified her as “you people.” She was humiliated. She then talks about how she doesn’t understand what “Islamophobia” is. She doesn’t get why it is a thing and that there’s a word for such thing. Islamophobia means to not like the Muslim religion in short. When she’s in public people sometimes ask her, “What are you wearing that for?” She says it happens very rarely but it does happen. She says when people ask this she explains how “It’s the same way nuns or Orthodox women wear it, to please our Lord,” (Shukri Olow) Most people understand her when she says this because it’s relatable, all religions have different physical features to them. Muslims’ featured are just more prominent. When people ask her openly about her physical features she says it’s an opportunity because she gets to explain to people who don’t understand to not just accept it but to listen. She explains how despite the difficult experiences and encounters she goes through everyday she still does think about others that have had similar experiences like her. For example, African Americans or Japanese Americans. “We are not the first and certainly won't be the last.” (Shukri Olow)
The 9/11 attack was the worst terrorist attack since Pearl Harbor. Many people died and the government is of course going to try to prevent it from happening again. The only way to do that is for the government to know as much as they can. Whether it is spying on us through our phones, laptops or even everyday security cameras. We don’t realize but the government is watching almost everyone’s move. Since the attack the government has abundantly stepped up on intelligence. There is a top secret budget called the “black budget” which holds $52.6 billion. The government has released annually on how they spend their money but it is not clear on what they are actually using the money on. This started in 2007 when they were being more covert with what they were doing. Since the attack they have probably been more secret with how they spend their money so people don’t know what they are doing or what they are planning to do . They don’t want certain people to know certain things so those certain people know what to do and what not to do.
9/11 has impacted people’s life without a doubt. Some more impacted than others but still even if you weren’t even there it still had a huge impact. A lady named Greer Epstein worked in the World Trade Center at the time 9/11 happened. She was working there as an executive director. That morning at about 9:40am, her friend called her and asked to go get a cigarette. Knowing her, it was very unlikely for her to leave her office because she didn’t have enough time to go all the way down because she was on the sixth seventh floor. She did however go with her friend and while she was on the way down the elevator she felt a jolt. She didn’t think anything of it though because it was always doing strange things. When she got down she noticed everyone was frozen and looking up at the sky. She was very confused, she looked up and saw bits of debris falling. Just when she figured out what was going on, a plane flew right through her office in the South Tower. That moment her life changed forever. One cigarette break saved her life. People having these “near misses” in life is not as great as you think. Of course you are alive but there is a question that haunts you everyday after the fact. “Why me?” People are tortured by this phrase for the rest of their life. There is a sense of guilt and frustration because your whole life you feel like you need to live up to a standard. You feel like you got a second chance for a reason so you are pressured to be a better person. The worst is just not knowing either if it was a coincidence or fate. Some people say it’s guardian angels that save you most of the time with “near misses.” Others say it’s just a coincidence. To this day thousands of people are impacted in some way by this day.
In 2002, the Department of Homeland security was established by the Bush Administration. The Department of Homeland Security is to prevent terrorist attacks from happening. The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Customs Service merged into one called, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. They have managed abundant changes in deportation, in other words it has increased. They have even doubled since 9/11. Between the years 1999 and 2001 there was a fluctuation of deportations. There was about four hundred thousand and then it dropped in 2002 and began to increase in 2003. Between the years 2009 and 2010 in the first two years of the Obama Admistration deportations skyrocketed to approximately 400,00 annually. Half of those deportations were because they were convicted of criminal offenses. However, they were almost all non-violent crimes. The Secure Communities Program was later created in 2008. This let local law enforcements around the country to check any person of their immigration status . This was by comparing fingerprints to federal immigration records. The program, Secure Communities, resulted in many cases of undocumented immigrants also known as “illegals.” This result happened for many happenings, such as speeding or having a broken tail light. There are now three thousand and eighty one programs just like this all throughout the nation.
In conclusion, airports, airport security, our views on Muslims, the way Muslims are treated and their perspective of our country, immigration and deportation, victims before the attack, lack of privacy, and lastly feeling safe wherever you go has changed due to the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Since the attack there have been drastic airport security changes along with airport changes in general. Our views on Muslims have also altered along with the way they look at our country. Privacy has been greatly refined because of the attack since 2001 due to the government and intelligence agencies boosting their technology. To sum up, 9/11 has most definitely changed the world we live in today in many aspects but in all good reason.
