Expert Views on Privacy and Civil Liberties 25 Years After September 11
Jake Laperruque / Sep 11, 2026Jake Laperruque is a fellow at Tech Policy Press.
The memorial is seen on the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
A quarter century ago today, the September 11, 2001 attacks stunned the United States and the world. For millennials like myself growing up in the immediate post-Cold War period, this shocking tragedy represented a loss of innocence. That felt especially true for those who, like me, grew up in and around New York City; for me, news of the attacks arrived in a school filled with kids whose parents, my own father included, worked in downtown Manhattan, some in the World Trade Center itself. September 11 became an irreparable scar for the United States, not only because of the terrible scale of the loss—with nearly 3,000 innocent people killed on that day (and many more since), including over 400 of the first responders who put themselves in harm's way to protect others—but also because it forever removed an expectation of safety we had in our daily lives.
With that sense of safety dramatically pulled away, the nation responded in drastic fashion: It launched what is colloquially known as the War on Terror in the form of clandestine operations and large-scale military engagements across the globe, accompanied by major changes to law and policy at home. Twenty-five years later, it is worth reflecting on how the US response to September 11 has reshaped privacy, civil liberties, and government power. We asked a set of experts to respond to a simple survey on how the United States has changed as a result of its War on Terror policies.
The responses are notable: on civil rights and civil liberties, there was general consensus that rights have declined, although there were split views on how much. There were also mixed views on whether the Department of Homeland Security is responsive to the purpose it was created for, and whether the government is less transparent on national security matters.
But on a few items there was strong agreement: Almost every respondent believes the public is now more skeptical of giving the government more counterterrorism and national security powers, and all agreed that terrorism has receded as a national security priority. In spite of this, there was universal agreement that the imperial presidency is much stronger than it was 25 years ago. The lesson seems daunting but clear: over time the seriousness of the threats (or how we view those threats or their severity relative to other dangers) may change, but it is incredibly difficult to claw back security powers given to the government — and especially to the executive — or to restore rights and protections once they are lost.
Nine Experts, Eight Questions
Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, Tech Policy Press asked nine privacy and civil liberties experts to assess what a quarter century of War on Terror policy has done to rights, oversight and executive power at home. Each answered the same eight questions on a five-point scale. Scale answers are reported in aggregate only.
The respondents
- Spencer AckermanJournalist, FOREVER WARS
- Sharon Bradford FranklinFormer Chair, Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
- Elizabeth GoiteinSenior Director, Liberty & National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice
- Kia HamadanchySenior Policy Counsel, ACLU; views are their own
- Jameel JafferExecutive Director, Knight First Amendment Institute
- Samir JainVice President of Policy, Center for Democracy & Technology
- Greg NojeimDirector, Security and Surveillance Project, Center for Democracy & Technology
- Faiza PatelSenior Director, Liberty and National Security, Brennan Center for Justice
- Peter SwireJ.Z. Liang Chair, Georgia Tech School of Cybersecurity and Privacy
01How do privacy rights and protections compare to 25 years ago?
02How do free speech rights and protections compare to 25 years ago?
03How do rights and protections for minority communities compare to 25 years ago?
04Is transparency into national security policy stronger or weaker than it was 25 years ago?
05How responsive is the Department of Homeland Security in its current form to the mission it was founded for after September 11?
06Is terrorism more or less of a national security priority than it was in the years immediately after the attacks?
07Is the public more inclined to give the government counterterrorism and national security powers today, or more skeptical of doing so?
08Is the Imperial Presidency more or less powerful than it was 25 years ago?
The biggest course correction
What is the biggest course correction or fix we’ve made to War On Terror policies in the past 25 years?
Three of the nine named the same law.
Bringing some assertions of executive authority under statutory structures (FISA instead of claims of Article II authority).
The USA FREEDOM Act and the expiration of Section 215.
Much more skeptical of surveillance authorities than we were in the immediate aftermath.
Disavowal of torture.
Enactment of the USA FREEDOM Act.
USA FREEDOM Act of 2015.
First I have to address the poor way these questions are worded. You ask: "How responsive is the Department of Homeland Security in its current form to the mission it was founded for after 9-11?" If you mean "treating immigration like terrorism" then it's doing an accelerated version of its original job. If you mean "first it focused on Islam and now it doesn't," then sure. But all these questions suffer from a euphemism that make them hard to address insightfully. "Is terrorism more or less of a national security priority than it was in the years immediately following the 9-11 attacks?" Well, they've just redefined terrorism – see NSPM-7 – so it's quite an intense priority right now; but I don't think that's actually what you mean to be asking. Now as to this question: I would say the closure of the CIA black sites.
Unfortunately there has been no course correction. Instead the surveillance state has only grown. The few reforms that were made in the wake of the Snowden disclosures (e.g., Section 215, some transparency on foreign intelligence surveillance) are modest compared to the increase in the government's surveillance capacities.
The biggest problem still unfixed
What’s the biggest problem born from our War On Terror policies that we haven’t fixed?
Mass surveillance.
Deference to the executive branch whenever they mention the words national security.
AUMF.
Permitting domestic surveillance without suspicion of criminal activity.
Excessive data sharing among agencies without sufficient safeguards.
The ability of the executive branch to use fear to push through policies that give more power to the executive without sufficient guardrails.
It's a tie: (1) The conflation of counterterrorism and war. Not all actions that meet the statutory definition of terrorism are acts of war that justify a military response or trigger the president's commander-in-chief powers. (2) The myth that national security is the sole province of the president (not Congress or the courts), resulting in a dangerous skewing of the balance of power among the three branches of government.
Our legal protections have not kept up with the ways in which rapid advances in technology have made surveillance at scale more possible and cheaper.
The biggest problem we haven't fixed is circumvention of legal protections Congress built into the law. The purchase of commercial data is perhaps the most troubling example of circumvention, followed by the erosion of Privacy Act protections against misuse of government data.
What we don’t reflect on enough
What’s one aspect of War On Terror policies and our response to September 11 that we don’t think about or reflect on enough?
Guantanamo Bay.
It’s not a zero sum game — we can and should protect both national security and privacy and civil liberties.
The military industrial complex.
The risks of post 9-11 information sharing efforts.
The correlation, globally and historically, between the adoption of extraordinary counterterrorism authorities and rising authoritarianism/democratic backsliding.
How much the current situation we are in right now in terms of abuse by the executive branches traces back to bipartisan expansions of executive authority that really began in the aftermath of 9/11.
We don't think enough about the costs to privacy of attempts by the government to classify people as citizens vs. non-citizens and adults vs. minors.
The long-term power and credibility of the US have eroded due to too much military intervention in the Middle East, a problem that continues today with Iran.
Nine responses, collected by Tech Policy Press. Marks are positioned by the answer given; shading shows its force — solid for “much” or “very,” pale for “somewhat” or “slightly,” light for “about the same” or “a mix.” Left is always less or weaker; right is always more or stronger. Open-ended answers appear as written, except that a closing period has been added where a response ended without one.
Authors
