Ray Kelly on the Sept. 11 anniversary, his next chapter and cybersecurity
By Alex Bregman
Former NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly joined Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga on “Yahoo News Now.” Kelly reflected on the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his life after leaving the police department, and an added chapter in his book, “Vigilance: My Life Serving America and Protecting Its Empire City.”
Kelly began by reflecting on the threat of terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks. He reacted to comments made by the National Counterterrorism Center Director Nick Rasmussen that the threat of terrorism is “bigger, wider and deeper” in the U.S. and its European allies than it has been since those attacks. He said, “I’m not in the position to contradict the head of the National Counterterrorism Center. Obviously they should have immediate information. I think the threat is broader, not necessarily deeper. By that, I mean sort of this whole country and certainly Europe is in play.”
Kelly also reflected on how the nature of terrorist attacks has changed since Sept. 11. He said, “Early on after 9/11 we were thinking of complex attacks. Certainly the 9/11 attack was very well executed, and it had a lot of moving parts. The threat has sort of morphed into a more simplistic threat, but easier to do … a lot easier to do. People taking rifles and just shooting other people. We saw it in Orlando. We saw it in San Bernardino in this country. We saw this truck that was used in Nice. In many ways I guess it’s more of a concern because the people who could do this are potentially everywhere.”
On protecting against the threat of cyberattacks that have grown since Sept. 11, Kelly said, “It’s very much a challenging situation. I think in this country we have to put together something like a Marshall Plan to address it because defense is very hard to play. Either defending your own information on your own system or your company’s system.”
On the threat of Russia’s hacking into the Democratic National Committee and state election systems, Kelly said, “I think it’s a very big concern and it’s being talked about now actively in Washington. Gen. [James] Clapper, the director of National Intelligence is said to be personally directing the efforts to protect the system.” “There are thousands of systems that are used throughout the election process throughout the country.”
He told Golodryga that the Russians “are a real threat, but one of the real problems is attribution. You can’t say with certainty where it came from. There are a lot of indicators apparently to the FBI that says to them that it was Russia.”
On what threat Kelly fears the most, he told Golodryga, “Well, probably [the threat with] the least probability, but the greatest consequence, is some sort of nuclear event… a nuclear device. You could take radiological material, combine it with conventional explosives and you create a dirty bomb and that would obviously cause injuries and death, but also prevent geographical areas from being entered for long periods of time, perhaps years. So we know that there’s loose nukes out there.”
Finally, Kelly, who is now in the private sector after serving as the longest ever NYPD commissioner, did not rule out a run for mayor of New York. He told Golodryga, “We’ll see what happens with the new administration.”
