DETROIT — The nature of terrorist threats against the United States has changed since Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray led the prosecution at the Justice Department against one of the men who carried out the World Trade Center attack in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.
Threats are now largely posed by people with anti-government and white supremacist agendas, Wray said Friday at a lecture on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, compared with the attack from overseas carried out on 9/11. Today's plots require far fewer people, far less planning and offer far fewer clues to investigators charged with stopping them, he said.
"They're not doing some spectacular attack, they're using some easily accessible weapon like a gun, a knife, a crude IED you can figure out how to build on the internet," Wray said. "And they're attacking not the World Trade Center with a commercial airliner. They're attacking what the intelligence community calls 'soft targets,' which is basically just everyday people living their everyday lives."
That means the FBI increasingly relies on tips from the public who report suspicious behavior such as escalating violent online rhetoric or someone's big purchase of fertilizer but lack of understanding about how to use it on a farm.
"That's how we make sure we've got the eyes and ears to make sure that we connect the dots, because there's a lot fewer dots and there's a lot less time in which to connect them," Wray said.
Wray, who has been FBI director since 2017, spoke Friday at UM's Ford School of Public Policy as part of the Josh Rosenthal Education Fund Lecture series.
Rosenthal is a UM graduate killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The lecture series aims to promote understanding of international issues, human rights, security and conflict resolution in his honor.
Wray led the prosecution against one of the 19 hijackers when he worked as a Department of Justice prosecutor. He now requires new FBI hires to visit the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City to understand how the attacks profoundly changed the country and federal law enforcement.
"Twenty years later, it's vitally important that our agents and analysts not only remember 9/11 as a historical moment, but also understand and feel the urgency of that moment," he said. "One that continues to reverberate in how we carry out our day to day jobs. Those experiences and that urgency should change you. It should give you a deeper understanding of just how much is on the line in this work, how much crime and terrorism wound victims and families and what an awesome responsibility we have."
In his lecture, Wray focused on the effect 9/11 had on the FBI and himself. He urged students to consider a career in public service.
He also took questions about cyber security threats posed by Russia, his concerns about the ways the Chinese government could use TikTok to influence Americans, the ongoing ramifications of the FBI's surveillance of Arab Americans and civil rights activists, including Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and the ways a hyper-partisan political climate affect FBI investigations.
Wray also defended the FBI's investigations that led to the prosecution of university faculty members who work with Chinese academics, since many of those trials have ended in not guilty verdicts, dropped charges and dismissed cases.
Ann Chih Lin, associate professor of public policy at UM and director of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, asked Wray to address advocates' accusation that the FBI assumes working with faculty at Chinese universities is a crime.
For example, Temple University Professor Xiaoxing Xi is pursuing damages from the federal government after he was arrested in 2015 and accused of sharing sensitive technology with Chinese scientists. The charges were dropped. Xi described his arrest as racial profiling, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Wray said the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party engage in an "international talent war" to steal intellectual property and surveil and threaten Chinese academics who work in the U.S.
The FBI works with universities to help them protect theirs, he said, which rarely leads to criminal prosecutions. He said the bureau does not racially profile people it investigates.
Lin also asked that he offer advice to her and other Chinese-Americans who hope to bridge the differences between the U.S. and China and feel caught in the middle, subjected to accusations of disloyalty or anti-Asian hate.
Wray said the FBI is concerned about the actions of the Chinese government, not Chinese people or Chinese-Americans.
"We view Chinese-Americans here as being with us," he said.
Wray met with public policy students before his Friday speech to talk about his career.
