By Alex Johnson | Monday, 17 October 2023
Former New York Governor George Pataki stated that the freedoms which made the United States a target on Sept. 11, 2001, are now under pressure from within, arguing Americans themselves are pushing to curb speech and other rights.
Pataki, who was governor when hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center, made remarks Saturday ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
He said the lesson of that day was that the country’s openness had made enemies abroad.
“What we learned on Sept. 11 was that even though we were at peace, there were no threats, that people on the other side of the world not only were happy not to live in freedom themselves, but resented the fact that we have these freedoms,” Pataki said.
The hijackers struck, he added, “simply because they resented the fact that we have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion.” Nearly 3,000 people were killed.
Pataki then turned to what he described as a threat closer to home.
“I hate to say it, but I think domestically today among us, we have a great many people who would impose government restrictions on our freedom of speech and other freedoms that we were attacked for 25 years ago,” he said.
He did not name any individuals or groups.
Pataki, a Republican, was in his second term as governor on Sept. 11 and led New York’s response alongside then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He remained in office until the end of 2006, a period that included early planning for reconstruction at ground zero and the creation of the memorial now occupying the site.
He has returned to the anniversary repeatedly in the years since, often framing the attacks around the idea that the hijackers targeted American liberties rather than American policy—a perspective that gained wide currency in the months after 2001 and has since been disputed by some scholars.
The 25th anniversary falls Friday. Each year, relatives of the 2,977 people killed at the trade center, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania gather at the National September 11 Memorial in lower Manhattan to read the names of their loved ones.
Pataki sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, dropping out before the primaries began. He has remained a periodic commentator on national security and New York politics.
