Ten Years After 9/11: Are We Safer?

U.S. Representative Patrick Meehan (R-PA7) has had a front row seat for the war one terror at the justice department and prosecution level almost from the day the planes hit the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and the ground outside Shanksville, PA.

Meehan, a former Delaware County District Attorney had been nominated for U.S. Attorney for Southeast Pennsylvania in the first months of the George W. Bush presidency. Like countless other Bush nominations, it was stalled in the Senate in the intensely partisan and divisive months following the Supreme Court ruling that gave Bush the White House, instead of former Vice President Al Gore.

The attacks of 9/11 put Meehan, and many other Bush nominees on a fast track to confirmation. 9/11 also changed the job priorities of a U.S. Attorney, even before Meehan and a dozen other new federal prosecutors were sworn in. The mission focus shifted largely to finding, prosecuting and rooting out terrorists.

Meehan now serves as a freshman Republican on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee where he chairs the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

In an interview with TE Patch, Meehan talks about how 9/11 affected him in a very personal way, how the nation's defenses against terrorism have changed and he answers a central question: Are we really any safer now against the threat of terror than we were in the days before and right after 9/11.

Click on the clips to hear Congressman Meehan's answers.