Terrorists remain committed to attacking airplanes, “cartel superpowers” are growing in reach and capabilities and hostile nations are increasingly eager to test American leadership, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Wednesday, evaluating how the threat environment has changed in the years since the 2001 attacks.
Ms. Nielsen said Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are not only battling the U.S. government and its allies, but directly threatening citizens themselves with cyberattacks, attempts to undermine elections and even directly attempting to murder them, as with the poison attacks in Britain.
Ms. Nielsen also again particularly fingered Russian President Vladimir Putin as the orchestrator of meddling in the 2016 election, calling it “a direct attack on our democracy.”
And she called on every state to ditch electronic-only voting systems and move to “auditable” systems that have paper trails that can be verified, which she said would give Americans more assurance that their votes are properly counted in future elections.
She set an informal deadline of the 2020 election for that to get done.
Ms. Nielsen was speaking at the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, delivering an update on security ahead of the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that changed the world.
“We are witnessing historic changes across the entire threat landscape. We can see the winds blowing and hear the thunder drawing closer once again,” she said.
She said al Qaeda and the Islamic State remain committed to attacks on airplanes, though they have more capabilities with access to smaller bombs that can be built from “Ikea-like instruction” books. There are also more dispersed lone-wolf attackers ready to be recruited and deployed through online missives from terrorist leaders.
“In just the past year, we’ve seen some of the most disturbing aviation plotting we have ever tracked,” she said.
But she said the airports are better defended, too, with international flights more secure than ever.
Ms. Nielsen issued particular warnings on cybersecurity dangers, saying 30 nations have cyber-attack capabilities — and the U.S. must have better strategies to fight back. She said the Trump administration will not be complacent in the face of attacks.
“Our digital lives are in danger like never before,” she said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.