The four passengers who entered Flight FZ1073’s cockpit acted with courage. The dentist treated a wounded captain. The plumber held the controls of an aircraft he had never flown. The off-duty pilots took over before the descent became irreversible. Above all, the captain opened the door. A system worthy of that courage should not depend on the same improbable sequence of luck next time.

U.S. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a new report detailing how the Trump administration has systematically dismantled key elements of the nation’s post-9/11 counterterrorism infrastructure.

The 2001 anthrax attacks in the US led to the emergence of biological terrorism as a public health, law enforcement, intelligence, and national security problem, highlighting the need for an integrated approach to addressing the threat. Advances in biotechnology, synthetic biology, and emerging technologies have defined the biological threat landscape over the past 25 years.

The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and biology could introduce serious global health and national security risks. As capabilities continue to advance, AI-enabled biotechnology might lower the technical, operational, and motivational barriers to creating biological weapons. It might also enable high-consequence attacks involving enhanced or novel pathogens.

One of the least known consequences of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is the financial surveillance that was expanded in the wake of the attack. The damage to civil liberties caused by that surveillance is far-reaching. The 25th anniversary of the attacks is a good time to ask whether the decision Congress made in 2001 makes sense in 2026.

Fortunately, the visa vetting system which failed to stop the 19 hijackers from receiving temporary nonimmigrant visas to travel to the United States has been improved, and vetting failures have become far less frequent after the attacks. Unfortunately, the most lasting immigration legacy of 9/11 is how it derailed bipartisan efforts to improve the legal immigration system for peaceful, productive immigrants, students, and travelers.

The 9/11 attacks were a strategic shock and demonstrated how quickly shock could overtake our security system. Twenty-five years later, the true measure of is a national security system resilient enough to withstand the next sudden shock without losing sight of the broader strategic environment.

One clear way the September 11 attacks changed the world was as a catalyst for a decades-long global “War on Terror”. This war never had a clear strategic plan or an agreed endpoint. Instead, it saw first Afghanistan, then Iraq, drawn into destructive conflict that amplified threats and gave new opportunities to terrorist groups.

Scientists have crossed an important line in biological engineering. In a recent study, researchers used artificial intelligence to design complete sets of genetic instructions for bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. These viruses were designed to infect bacteria rather than people, but even so, the experiment raises an important question: if AI becomes increasingly able to help design biological systems, are our safeguards developing fast enough?