FBI Director Chris Wray said the U.S. is “safer” now than it was in 2001 when the Sept. 11 terror attacks occurred, noting that the U.S. is better equipped to manage terror threats now.
“People think of the 9/11 threat, they think New York, they think D.C. Today’s terrorist threat is everywhere, coast to coast, north, south east, west,” Wray told CBS’s Norah O’Donnell in the first of a multi-part interview, according to a preview. “It’s a different kind of threat.”
The U.S. is “safer” and “dramatically better prepared” to handle terror threats, although he noted they have “evolved” and pose new difficulties in combating them, Wray said at the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City. This includes cyber threats, which Wray claimed were “at an all-time high.”
“Terrorism today moves at the speed of social media,” Wray said.
Additionally, Wray said the FBI stopped multiple potential terrorist attacks in the last year, including one ahead of a Fourth of July celebration in Cleveland and another where a college student in Minnesota was “recruiting classmates to join al Qaeda and al-Shabaab.”
Each year, the FBI receives approximately 15,000 tips, which translates to “40 tips a day, two tips an hour,” Wray said.
“We had about 120 arrests, terrorism related arrests, last year alone,” Wray said. “So there’s a lot happening every day, 365 days a year right now in the terrorism front,” he added.
The interviews are set to air on Sept. 11 and Sept. 13 on “CBS This Morning.”
Wray assumed office as FBI director in August 2017 after being confirmed by the Senate.
