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PROTECTING THE SKIES

The Sept. 11 suicide hijackings brought profound changes to airline security: a ban on short-bladed knives, the installation of steel cockpit doors and the deployment of armed federal air marshals on flights. Congress ordered the newly created Transportation Security Administration to hire and train 45,000 airport security officers and to address aviation's biggest vulnerability — bombs — by screening all checked baggage. Large airports were equipped with 1,400 van-sized devices that use medical imaging technology to scan luggage for explosives. Another 6,000 smaller systems that detect trace explosive residues now screen both checked and carry-on bags at all 450 airports. Recently, passenger screeners began using new CT scanners at 36 airports. But none of the devices can detect liquid explosives like those linked to a recent Britain-based plot.

GATHERING AND SHARING INTELLIGENCE

The USA Patriot Act, passed six weeks after the terrorist attacks and reauthorized in March, broadened the federal government's surveillance authority and lowered the intelligence wall that had hindered the FBI and the CIA from sharing information pre-Sept. 11. A new federal intelligence czar, John Negroponte, now watches over more than a dozen intelligence agencies to ensure they work together. After being blamed for ignoring clues to the Sept. 11 plot, the FBI doubled its number of intelligence analysts. The agency also combined its intelligence and counterterrorism divisions to create the Directorate of Intelligence and formed intelligence "fusion centers" aimed at encouraging the sharing of intelligence by federal, state and local agencies. The FBI now shares its "terror watch list" with other federal, state and local authorities. Federal law enforcement agencies rely on "data mining" to cull intelligence from massive amounts of electronic records, including phone records and e-mails.

TARGETING TERRORIST FINANCING

In 2004, then-Treasury Secretary John W. Snow signed an order creating an office that aims to safeguard U.S. financial systems against terrorists and cut off sources of terror financing. Since then, the Treasury Department says more than 1,600 terrorist-related accounts and transactions have been blocked around the world, including 150 in the United States. About 40 charities alleged to have funneled money to al-Qaida, Hamas and other terror groups have been denied access to the U.S. financial system. More than 150 nations have endorsed global standards to combat terrorist financing, including provisions governing charities and cash smuggling. Earlier this year, news reports revealed that the United States and numerous other nations were collaborating on a program to secretly share banking records to track terrorists' financial transactions.

DEFENDING AGAINST GERM AND CHEMICAL WARFARE

Federal agencies have spent upwards of $28 billion since Sept. 11 and an ensuing anthrax attack to defend against biological weapons. The government has stockpiled enough antibiotics to treat 40 million anthrax victims, 5 million doses of anthrax vaccine and 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine. Every state has set up a 24-hour testing laboratory to speed detection of an invisible attack. Daily air sampling is conducted in dozens of cities to test for deadly germs. Federal officials are grappling with a newly emerging threat — that terrorists could engineer their own communicable germs for which there is no antidote. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has amassed medicine to treat victims of nerve agents, such as the deadly sarin gas that Japanese cultists released in 1995 in the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 people and sending thousands to hospitals.

STOPPING NUCLEAR AND 'DIRTY BOMB' ATTACKS

To prevent a catastrophic nuclear attack or detonation of a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major city, the government has ramped up the use of radiation-detection devices. The devices now screen 68 percent of ship cargo and 91 percent of trucks entering the country. Acting on intelligence, government inspectors also have carted portable radiation detectors to sites across the country, even mosques, to test for radiation. But current devices are plagued by false positives. In July, the government awarded $1.1 billion in contracts for advanced radiation detectors. Preparing for an attack, the Department of Health and Human Services is on the verge of buying 100,000 doses of a new drug that sharply increases the survival of monkeys exposed to massive radiation.

EXPANSION OF PRESIDENTIAL POWERS

President Bush has pushed the limits of presidential authority to combat terrorism. He ordered the creation of military commissions to deal with terror suspects and concluded that detainees were not covered by the Geneva Conventions. He established a new eavesdropping program to target communication between suspected terrorists and their associates in the United States. He also expanded the use of rendition, the practice of sending terror suspects to foreign countries for interrogation and prosecution. The Supreme Court declared the military commissions illegal in June, and Bush and Congress are working on an alternative approach. The government has appealed a court ruling against the eavesdropping program.

SECURING THE BORDERS

With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, the roles of customs, immigration and agricultural inspectors were merged into one agency, known as U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, 2,263 more Border Patrol agents have been hired, almost tripling the number assigned to the northern border and bringing the total to 12,084. The agency installed 855 radiation portal monitors at land and seaports to detect nuclear and radiological materials in cargo shipments. Homeland Security deployed video surveillance cameras and more than 1,000 people "sensors" along the 6,000-mile border to help electronically alert Border Patrol agents to illegal entrants in remote areas.

PROTECTING CYBERSPACE

Some terrorism catastrophe scenarios wouldn't require a single explosive. Homeland Security officials worry that terrorists could sabotage or infiltrate major U.S. computer systems in financial institutions or at the Pentagon or even the Federal Aviation Administration's air-traffic-control system, wreaking untold havoc. Homeland Security created a National Cyber Security Division to issue alerts, respond to major incidents and aid in computer recovery efforts. The unit is working collaboratively with public and private partners to assess cyber risks and develop programs to insulate these systems from attacks.

COUNTERTERRORISM INVESTIGATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS

The USA Patriot Act broadened the federal government's prosecutorial authority, toughening laws aimed at prosecuting suspects for the "material support" of terrorist organizations. The changes also eased the FBI's ability to obtain warrants to eavesdrop or conduct searches during terrorism investigations. In the months after Sept. 11, the FBI held hundreds of terrorism suspects indefinitely as "material witnesses." Justice Department lawyers now file other criminal charges against a terrorism suspect, such as immigration and drug violations, if they lack sufficient evidence to bring terrorism-related charges. The FBI increased the number of joint terrorism task forces from 35 to 103.

GUARDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE

After the World Trade Center was leveled, the government catalogued thousands of potential terrorist targets across the country and began to set priorities for defending them. The Department of Homeland Security's Infrastructure Directorate has since drawn up a highly classified list of 1,100 potential targets warranting the most attention — presumably including everything from nuclear power plants to Hoover Dam and Minnesota's Mall of America. The agency also has drafted a national infrastructure-protection plan that defines defense roles for all levels of government, private industry and even American Indian tribes. Based on agency vulnerability assessments at sites across the country, the plan aims to plug holes that could allow terrorists to attack any of 17 sectors, including food and drinking supplies, rail lines, oil pipelines, nuclear and chemical plants, defense facilities and national monuments.