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One of the central findings of the 9/11 Commission was that the intelligence and law enforcement communities had gathered enough signals to potentially detect and disrupt the plot but failed to “connect the dots” due to poor information-sharing, the siloing of information and other barriers to collaboration.
The failure to connect those dots came at the immediate cost of 3,000 American lives – and the death or injury of over 60,000 U.S. servicemembers in the wars that followed the attacks. The efforts to address the failures that led to 9/11 built the Department of Homeland Security, expanded Joint Terrorism Task Forces, established fusion centers where agencies share information and created new systems for federal, state and local agencies to better work together and prevent attacks.
Twenty-five years after the attacks, those systems need to be re-examined and reimagined.
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Built for a different, slower, pre-social-media era, not only has our threat environment become more complex, but it has also become more dynamic. For organizations, this means the ability to act across borders and virtually. For individuals, it means the collapse of the timeline between radicalization and violence.
Today, a troubled individual can consume extremist content online in the morning, causing them to immediately embrace a violent ideology, post online an intention to harm others and launch an attack that same day.
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What once might have taken months, is now occurring in weeks or days.
The challenge is no longer to simply connect dots. It is identifying which dots matter in a sea of dots, getting them swiftly to the right people and acting before a threat becomes an attack.
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Few communities have experienced this shift more directly than the American Jewish community.
As the head of the Secure Community Network (SCN), the official safety and security organization for the Jewish community in North America, I have watched threats evolve from slow-moving, carefully planned conspiracies into a constant stream of online threats, suspicious activity reports and individuals moving rapidly from rhetoric to action.
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These modern-day terrorists move fast. We – community members and law enforcement – need to move faster.
Last year alone, SCN proactively identified over 850 threats to life – each of which we analyzed and then referred to the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center, state and local fusion centers and other law enforcement partners. The goal was to disrupt those who would undertake violence – and then bring them to justice. In many cases, we were successful, with our referrals resulting in investigations, interventions, arrests and convictions before anyone was harmed.
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In Pittsburgh, SCN and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh worked closely with law enforcement tracking a months-long campaign of harassment and threats by a White supremacist targeting participants in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial. Information shared with the FBI helped lead to the arrest of Hardy Lloyd, who admitted intentionally targeting jurors and government witnesses because of their actual or perceived Jewish religion. In December 2023, Lloyd was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison.
Today, a troubled individual can consume extremist content online in the morning, causing them to immediately embrace a violent ideology, post online an intention to harm others and launch an attack that same day.
Starting a few months later, in Philadelphia, an individual began a 15-month campaign of mailing more than 40 violent letters to more than 25 Jewish institutions across multiple states, as tracked by SCN. One threatened: “Your lovely museum has so many big open windows, among other things inside. Kristallnacht, anyone? Get ready, this is going to be great fun.”
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SCN tracked the campaign with partner federations, providing coordinated data to federal authorities that enabled the suspect’s arrest. The Department of Justice credited SCN’s information-sharing in the successful prosecution, which in March 2026 resulted in a 37-month federal prison sentence.
These incidents were different in geography, circumstance and method. The common thread was the need to identify actionable information, get it into the right hands and act on it before threats became violence and lives were lost.
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Attacks these days are less likely to be coordinated by multiple people meeting clandestinely in person or on the phone. They’re more likely to involve single individuals who live online.
Each threat requires a sharp, well-trained analyst to assess its credibility, understand the local context and immediately move actionable information to local security professionals who are working to protect the community and its institutions, as well as law enforcement. In today’s environment, minutes and hours can matter as much as days once did.
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This is not simply a security challenge for the Jewish community.
Churches, mosques, schools, hospitals, public officials and other frequently targeted institutions face similar challenges. Violent extremists no longer fit neatly into ideological categories.
White supremacists borrow from jihadist propaganda. Anti-government extremists amplify antisemitic conspiracy theories. Foreign terrorist organizations inspire domestic actors they have never met. And homegrown hatred of Jews is on the rise.
The boundaries separating these threats continue to erode even as the speed of mobilization accelerates.
Fusion centers remain an essential part of our national security architecture. But today’s threat environment requires another layer in the form of trusted public-private partnerships with direct connections to law enforcement.
For the Jewish community, that means stepping up and taking a much more proactive approach to protection.
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That is the principle behind SCN’s Regional Threat Capability Initiative, which monitors the internet day and night to find threats, assess them and get them into the right law enforcement hands. The model combines local awareness with national coordination so communities and law enforcement can move fast to stop attacks. Collaboration – within the community and beyond – is key.
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Twenty-five years after 9/11 there are still lessons to be learned. We’re moving fast to implement them.
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