天空晴朗蔚蓝。灰色的塔楼矗立在通往国家的大门处，既守卫又欢迎。撞击、大火、浓烟不知从哪里冒出来，然后塔楼消失了。当尘埃和火焰最终散去，一个新的世界出现了。
死亡和毁灭定义了那个夏末的日子，并在那些经历了2001年9月11日的人的脑海中留下了烙印。从灰烬和废墟中崛起了一个新的美国:一个被伤疤重新定义、以新的战时现实为标志的社会——最近几天，原教旨主义伊斯兰统治在酝酿袭击的遥远土地上死灰复燃，这一阴影变得更加黑暗。
20年后，7000多万美国人自恐怖袭击的严峻考验后出生九一一事件遗骸。从机场安全到平民治安，再到日常生活中最不经意的部分，我们几乎不可能找到不受2001年那些恐怖时刻影响的事物。
本周，美国广播公司新闻回顾了9/11袭击并展开他们的余波，深入审视在毁灭后诞生的美国。《9/11二十年后:最长的阴影》是由乔治·斯特凡诺普洛斯讲述的五集系列纪录片。9月6日至10日，美国广播公司新闻直播将在袭击20周年纪念日之前的每晚播出剧集。该系列将在9月11日星期六的纪念仪式后全面重播。
第二部分:安心值这个价吗?
汤姆·里奇放下园艺工具，跟着州警走进他位于宾夕法尼亚州伊利的一条死胡同里的家。
“那是美好的一天——几乎不是天上的云，”里奇回忆道，他当时是宾夕法尼亚州颇受欢迎的两届州长。"在四架商用飞机撞上之前，一切都很正常。"
“这是一次袭击。”
几小时后，里奇来到了宾夕法尼亚州的尚克斯维尔。，观察93号航班的残骸，并安慰宾夕法尼亚州西部小社区的成员，当双子塔倒塌和五角大楼烧毁时，他们被推入全球反恐战争的第一分钟。两周后，里奇在白宫西翼，担任小布什总统的安全顾问。2003年，他宣誓成为第一个国土安全部部长。
“坦率地说，当时的批评是对的，”里奇说。“‘汤姆·里奇对恐怖主义了解多少?’大概，像99.999%的美国其他地方——可能是世界其他地方——不会太多。"
在911事件之后，当美国人努力应对一场空前的恐怖袭击的后果时，联邦政府争先恐后地阻止了第二波恐后的袭击。联邦政府对911事件的反应规模与其造成的悲剧规模相当。当基地组织抛弃旧的战争规则时，布什政府决定必须写一本新的规则手册。
美国的国家安全机构重新调整了个人自由和集体安全之间的平衡。新机构——特别是国土安全部及其下属机构运输安全管理局-是从头开始建造的。
这挑战巨大;结果有争议。但对于许多一开始就在那里的人来说，目的证明了手段的正当性。
“我可以100%向你保证，美国公众今天爬上飞机比911之前的任何时候都要安全得多，”弗兰克·哈特菲尔德说，他在基地组织实施其计划时监督东海岸的空域。他将继续建立联邦航空管理局的安全运营系统，并在9月11日之后的20年中的大部分时间里领导该系统。
当19名劫机者在那个平静的夏末早晨登上4架飞往加州的飞机时，他们通过机场候机楼的路线看起来与今天大不相同。没有丢弃液体，没有脱鞋，当然也没有高科技的x光和身体扫描仪。
“你可以让人们在门口迎接你，你可以让人们和你一起进去，你可以做各种你现在做不到的事情，”美国运输安全管理局的高级律师玛戈·贝斯特回忆道，在该机构成立的20年里，她一直在工作。
“911之前...所有的安检人员都是由航空公司“Bester说，他最近退休，担任运输安全管理局首席副首席法律顾问，该机构的二号律师。”没有真正强有力的标准。所以所有的劫机者都通过了，即使是用切片机。他们刚刚通过，我认为这对国家来说是一个真正的打击。"
那些负责保障航空旅行安全的人描述了建立一个全新的安全基础设施，同时防止另一次袭击发生的混乱。对于美国运输安全管理局来说，一个由经验丰富的政府官员组成的团队开始“从零开始维护这个机构”，Bester说——“没有纸，没有笔，没有垫子。我们把家里所有的东西都带来了。”
“那是狂野西部，”她说。“我们正在做所有这些，建立一个机构，同时我们收到各种情报，表明航空业仍然受到威胁...所有这些都是同时发生的。”
新的安全机制在某些关键方面是成功的。“9·11”委员会的高级顾问约翰·法尔默指出，“美国还没有发生另一起伤亡规模与“9·11”相当的重大恐怖袭击。”
但是，没有成长的烦恼，就不可能实施如此大规模的安全改革。
由于专注于防止未来的袭击，美国运输安全管理局在成立初期就面临着种族貌相指控的审查。批评者指责该机构不正当地侵犯了守法的美国人的权利，这些人可能看起来像911事件的肇事者。该机构因使用旅行模式来判断某人是否可能实施袭击而受到批评。
“我们总是试图弄清楚——谁是恐怖分子?我们如何才能发现一个可能的恐怖分子?”贝斯特说。
Bester描述了锡克社区他们的成员犹豫着要不要摘掉他们的宗教头饰。但她坚称，种族貌相从来都不是美国运输安全管理局的官方政策，并表示，结果——没有重大袭击——证明了这些挑战的合理性。
“如果美国运输安全管理局官员不在那里，整个行动也不在那里，对美国公众来说，这将是一个远不安全的环境，”Bester说。“我认为我们再也回不到以前的样子了。”
但对于一些社区来说，这种针对性太过了。
罗格斯大学的法学教授萨哈尔·阿齐兹回忆说:“有些人因为穿着印有阿拉伯语的t恤而在机场被拦下审问。“有时候阿拉伯语翻译过来就像‘Party’或者‘Hello’但只是一个符号，阿拉伯文字的图像...它与恐怖主义有关，引起了人们的怀疑。"
在政府的其他部门，特别是在执法和情报部门，钟摆总是微妙地悬在个人自由和集体国家安全之间，越来越倾向于安全。
布什政府时期的美国司法部长阿尔韦托·冈萨雷斯为政府对袭击的回应进行了辩护，称这是在当时情况下“完全合适”的自然“起伏”的一部分。
“在极端情况下，自由确实必须被限制，”法默说。“但它们必须是极端的，威胁必须是真实的。”
“这是一个不断变化的平衡，”法默补充道，“而且会随着时间的推移而变化。”
不是每个人都同意。国家安全局前高级官员汤姆·德雷克将911事件后的几周和几个月描述为一个“深渊”，安全与个人自由的“二分法”急剧转向安全的一边
“谁在乎自由?谁在乎约束?我们只需要让美国人再次感到安全，”德雷克说，他描述了那些主张在国家安全方面有更大自由的人的立场。
德雷克回忆说，9·11事件发生不到一周，副总统迪克·切尼在电视上说，国家安全机构将需要致力于切尼所说的情报“黑暗面”——使用“我们掌握的任何手段，基本上，来实现我们的目标，”德雷克说。
对德雷克来说，切尼的提议德雷克说，这表明联邦政府“非常愿意为了安全而有效地暂停宪法”。
但是切尼为他的声明辩护。2006年，当被问及他的“阴暗面”评论时，切尼说:“我工作的一部分是思考不可思议的事情，关注恐怖分子实际上可能为我们准备了什么。
德雷克说，他最终对911事件后情报部门的一些活动感到非常不安，以至于他写了一份备忘录，并把自己的担忧告诉了国家安全局局长。他概述了几个大规模、昂贵的监控项目和技术，他说这些项目和技术被滥用了，包括在没有适当授权的情况下监控一些美国人。
德雷克说:“说它引起了对我的轩然大波是轻描淡写的说法。
在911事件后，德雷克成为几名情报界举报者中第一个提醒人们注意政府在监视美国人方面的过度行为的人，这份名单的标题是爱德华·斯诺登，他在2013年泄露了一批机密文件概述电子监控实践。
2007年，联邦调查局对德雷克进行监视，并突袭了他的家。司法部后来指控他从事间谍活动，但最终放弃了这个案子。德雷克失去了他的职业生涯，并在与政府的长期法律斗争中失去了支付诉讼费的退休储蓄。
“我仍然会在半夜醒来流汗，”他说。
但尽管德雷克失去了一切，他仍然坚持自己决定的优点。
“我所做的只是捍卫一张名为宪法的纸，好吗?这就是我所做的一切，”他说。“我不会违背我在政府生涯中庄严宣誓过四次的誓言。为此，我变成了一个罪犯。”
德雷克说，归根结底，“说这是自由还是安全是错误的二分法。将它们对立起来是一种错误的二分法。”
'The Longest Shadow': A radical post-9/11 government overhaul pits security against liberty
The sky was clear and blue. The gray towers stood, both guarding and welcoming, at the gateway to the nation. Out of nowhere came the impact, the blaze, the smoke -- and then the towers were gone. When the dust and flames finally cleared, a new world had emerged.
The death and destruction defined that late summer day and remain seared in the minds of those who lived through Sept. 11, 2001. From the ashes and wreckage rose a new America: a society redefined by its scars and marked by a new wartime reality -- a shadow darkened even more in recent days by the resurgence of fundamentalist Islamist rule in the far-off land that hatched the attacks.
Twenty years later -- with more than 70 million Americans born since the crucible of the attacks -- the legacy of9/11remains. From airport security to civilian policing to the most casual parts of daily life, it would be nearly impossible to identify something that remains untouched and unaffected by those terrifying hours in 2001.
This week, ABC News revisits the9/11 attacksand unwinds their aftermath, taking a deep look at the America born in the wake of destruction. "9/11 Twenty Years Later: The Longest Shadow" is a five-part documentary series narrated by George Stephanopoulos. Episodes will air on ABC News Live each night leading up to the 20th anniversary of the attacks, from Sept. 6-10. The series will be rebroadcast in full following the commemoration ceremonies on Saturday, Sept. 11.
Part 2: Is peace of mind worth the price?
Tom Ridge set down his gardening tools and followed the state troopers inside his home on a cul-de-sac in Erie, Pa.
"It was a beautiful day -- hardly a cloud in the sky," recalled Ridge, who was then a popular two-term governor of Pennsylvania. "Things were going normally until four commercial aircraft struck."
"It was an attack."
Within hours, Ridge was in Shanksville, Pa., observing the wreckage of Flight 93 and comforting members of the small Western Pennsylvania community who were thrust into the first minutes of the Global War on Terror as the Twin Towers crumbled and the Pentagon burned. Two weeks later, Ridge was in the West Wing of the White House, serving as a security adviser to President George W. Bush. In 2003, he was sworn in as the firstsecretary of homeland security.
"And frankly, the criticism at the time was spot on," Ridge said. "'What does Tom Ridge know about terrorism?' Probably, like 99.999% of the rest of America -- maybe the rest of the world -- not too much."
In the wake of 9/11, as Americans grappled with the consequences of an unparalleled terror attack, the federal government scrambled to preempt a second wave of assaults that was feared to be imminent. The scale of the federal government's response to 9/11 matched the scale of tragedy it caused. And when al-Qaeda discarded the old rules of war, the Bush administration decided a new rulebook had to be written.
America's national security apparatus recalibrated the balance between individual liberty and collective safety. New agencies -- notably the Department of Homeland Security and itsTransportation Security Administration-- were built from the ground up.
Thechallenges were monumental; the outcomes controversial. But for many who were there at the beginning, the ends justified the means.
"The American public, I can 100% assure you, are far, far safer today crawling onto an airplane than you were any time before 9/11," said Frank Hatfield, who oversaw the East Coast air space when al-Qaeda carried out its plan. He would go on to build the Federal Aviation Administration security operations system and lead it for most of the 20 years following Sept. 11.
When 19 hijackers boarded four California-bound airplanes on that calm late summer morning, their route through the airport terminals looked far different than it would today. No discarding liquids, no removing shoes, and certainly no high-tech X-rays and body scanners.
"You could have people meet you at the gate, you could have people go in with you, and you could have all kinds of things that you can't do now," recalled Margot Bester, a senior attorney at the TSA for most of the 20 years the agency has been in existence.
"Before 9/11 ... all the security screeners were contracted by theairlines," said Bester, who recently retired as the TSA's principal deputy chief counsel, the agency's number-two lawyer. "There were no really strong standards. So all of those hijackers got through, even with box cutters. They just got through, and I think that was a real shock to the country."
Those tasked with securing air travel describe the chaos of setting up a brand-new safety infrastructure while preventing another attack from taking place. For the TSA, a team of seasoned government officials set to work "standing up this agency from scratch," Bester said -- "no paper, no pens, no pads. We were bringing everything in from home."
"It was the Wild West," she said. "We're doing all of this, setting up an agency, at the same time that we're receiving all kinds of intelligence that aviation is still being threatened ... all of this is happening simultaneously."
The new security mechanisms were a success in some critical ways. John Farmer, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, notes that "there has not been another major terrorist attack in the U.S with casualties on the scale of 9/11."
But no security overhaul of that magnitude could be executed without growing pains.
With a laser focus on preventing future attacks, the TSA faced scrutiny in its early life over allegations of racial profiling. Critics accused the agency of improperly infringing on the rights of law-abiding Americans who may have appeared to resemble the perpetrators of 9/11. The agency was criticized for using travel patterns to gauge whether someone was likely to commit an attack.
"We were always trying to figure out -- who's a terrorist? How are we going to spot a likely terrorist?" Bester said.
Bester described challenges with theSikh community, whose members were hesitant to remove their religious headwear. But she insisted that racial profiling was never an official policy of TSA, and said that the outcome -- no major attacks -- justified those challenges.
"It would be a far less safe environment for the American public if the TSA officer was not there and that whole operation was not there," Bester said. "I don't think we'll ever go back to the way it was before."
But for some communities, the targeting went too far.
"There were people who were getting stopped and interrogated at airports for wearing T-shirts that had Arabic on them," recalls Sahar Aziz, a law professor at Rutgers University. "And sometimes the language, the Arabic, when translated, was something like 'Party' or 'Hello.' But just the sign, the image of Arabic script ... it was associated with terrorism, caused people to be suspicious."
Elsewhere in government, particularly in the law enforcement and intelligence communities, the pendulum -- always suspended delicately between personal freedom and the collective national security -- swayed ever further toward security.
Alberto Gonzales, the U.S. attorney general during the Bush administration, defended the government's response to the attacks as part of a natural "ebb and flow" that was "totally appropriate" under the circumstances.
"Under extreme circumstances, liberty does have to be curtailed," Farmer said. "But they have to be extreme, and the threats have to be real."
"It's a constantly shifting balance," Farmer added, "and it's going to shift over time."
Not everyone agreed. Tom Drake, a former senior official at the National Security Agency, describes the weeks and months that followed 9/11 as an "abyss" where "the dichotomy" of security versus personal liberty "dramatically shifted to the side of security."
"Who cares about liberty? Who cares about constraints? We just need to make Americans feel safe again," Drake said, charactering the position of those who advocated for broader latitude in national security.
Drake recalled that less than a week after 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney said on television that national security agencies would need to work on what Cheney described as the "dark side" of intelligence -- using "any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective," Drake said.
To Drake,Cheney's overturessuggested that the federal government would be "more than willing to suspend, effectively, the Constitution for the sake of security," Drake said.
But Cheney has defended his statement. "Part of my job is to think about the unthinkable, to focus upon what in fact the terrorists may have in store for us," Cheney said in 2006 when asked about his "dark side" comments.
Drake says he eventually grew so disturbed by some of the activities of the intelligence community in the wake of 9/11 that he penned a memo and took his concerns to the director of NSA. He outlined several massive, expensive surveillance programs and technologies that he said were being misused -- including to monitor some Americans without an appropriate warrant.
"To say that it caused a firestorm against me would be an understatement," Drake said.
Drake became the first of several intelligence community whistleblowers to call attention to perceived government overreach in surveilling Americans in the wake of 9/11 -- a list headlined by Edward Snowden, who in 2013leaked a cache of classified documentsoutlining electronic monitoring practices.
In 2007, the FBI put Drake under surveillance and raided his home. The Justice Department later charged him with espionage, but ended up dropping the case. Drake lost his career, and lost his retirement savings paying for legal fees in a protracted legal fight with the government.
"I still wake up in the middle of the night sweating," he said.
But for all that he lost, Drake stands by the virtues of his decision.
"All I did was defend a piece of paper called the Constitution, OK? That's all I did," he said. "I would not break faith or fidelity with the oath that I had solemnly sworn four times in my government career. And for that, I was turned into a criminal."
Ultimately, said Drake, "it's a false dichotomy to say that it's liberty or security. It's a false dichotomy to set them up one against the other."
