9/11 Commission

Assessment of 9/11 Commission Recommendation



Assessment of 9/11 Commission Recommendation

The 9/11 commission, on July 22, 2004, released recommendations to make U.S. safer, more secure and avoid any future attacks on the American soil. These were accepted by a unanimous and bipartisan decision and came directly from the investigations of September 11 attacks. More than 6 years have passed without any other major attack in United States and credit should be given to courageous Americans. But the threat still remains. Let us assess the progress one of the recommendations from the report.

"The U.S. government cannot meet its own obligations to the American people to prevent the entry of terrorists without a major effort to collaborate with other governments. We should do more to exchange terrorist information with trusted allies, and raise U.S. and global border security standards for travel and border crossing over the medium and long term through extensive international cooperation." (9/11 Commission Members, 2004)

While the recommendation is quite vague as how this collaboration can be carried out, it suggests the requirement for universal standards for identity authentication (biometrical passports), sharing terrorist watch list with trusted allies and building a global network of screening system that can verify the arrival/departure of individuals and validate that individual's identity in real time. So far there has been unsatisfactory progress in these aspects. (Russell 2005)

It is important for border security to know who is coming into the United States. For this it's important to check the ports of entry of entry. For this United States is working with Canada and Mexico more than before. Terrorist watch lists which are the primary tool for border control have been taken seriously by the US and work has been done in this matter but more information needs to be shared among US, existing allies and ...