How Technology Has, and Has Not, Changed Since 9-11

11 September 2011

A police officer for Amtrak, the national passenger railroad, stands guard at Pennsylvania Station in New York on Friday

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

It has been ten years since terrorists used hijacked airplanes to attack the United States. In the years since then, much has been done to improve security in the country.

Intelligence sharing and cooperation between federal, state and local government agencies is said to be at an all-time high. There also have been improvements in airport security.

But a new report says the United States is not as safe as should be. It says America “is not yet prepared for a truly catastrophic disaster.”

The report is from the National Security Preparedness Group at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The group is led by former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean and former congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana. The two men also led the 9-11 Commission.

Congress asked the commission to investigate the September eleventh attacks and to make proposals for guarding against future attacks.

The new report noted that nine of the reforms proposed by the commission have either been carried out ineffectively or completely ignored.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke about the report.

HILLARY CLINTON: “As the members of the 9-11 Commission recently reported, a number of their major recommendations remain unfulfilled. For example, much-needed radio frequencies have not yet been allotted to first responders to allow them to communicate effectively in a crisis ... an issue that I worked on for many years in the Senate and is long overdue for completion."