For fans of spy movies and television shows, a visit to CIA headquarters will be disappointing. The visitor center looks nothing like the high-tech offices of Jason Bourne and Carrie Mathison. Instead, the entry to America’s best-known intelligence agency has more of a shabby post-office feel. There are teller windows with bulletproof glass, soda machines, and an old-fashioned black landline phone mounted on the back wall.
Twenty years ago, al-Qaeda hijackers carried out the worst-ever terrorist attack on American soil, killing nearly 3,000 innocents, terrifying the nation, and forever changing the course of history—ushering in America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.Yet September 11 was also something else: our worst intelligence failure in more than half a century. It was a surprise attack that should not have been a surprise.
The recently revealed SolarWinds hack unfolded like a scene from a horror movie: Victims frantically barricaded the doors, only to discover that the enemy had been hiding inside the house the whole time. For months, intruders have been roaming wild inside the nation’s government networks, nearly all of the Fortune 500, and thousands of other companies and organizations.