On 9/11’s 25th anniversary, modernizing government starts with remembering our past
As we mark the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, we honor those we lost and reflect on progress in our national security and public safety architectures. Yet behind the ceremonies lies a persistent, quiet vulnerability. Today, public sector Chief Data Officers and Chief Data and AI Officers have inherited the imperative to connect the dots, share information across boundaries, and better serve Americans.
Too often, however, they stumble over the same structural barriers that blinded us a quarter-century ago: isolated data silos, stove-piped legacy systems, failures of intergovernmental coordination, and interagency turf wars. Worse, threats have accelerated, driven by transnational crime, rapid technological advances in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, and geopolitical conflict. These barriers are compounding into AI data readiness gaps. The cost of forgetting is not theoretical.
Following the 9/11 Commission’s diagnosis, legislation informed by the Markle Foundation required the President to establish a cross-domain, whole-of-government Information...
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