ClaimsPeter Thiel

“We didn’t get that much terrorism, and we instead got the Patriot Act and incredible tracking of money flows, incredible monitoring of people.”

Peter Thiel, interviewee April 2024 Peter Thiel on Political Theology (Ep. 210) (Conversations with Tyler) archived copy

Factual Other global risks

After 9/11 there was not much terrorism, and instead the US got the Patriot Act, extensive tracking of money flows and monitoring of people.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

There are two parts: (a) after 9/11 there was 'not much' terrorism, read as referring to the US and as meaning comparatively few terrorist attacks or deaths on US soil after 2001, relative to fears at the time and to 9/11 itself; and (b) the US enacted the Patriot Act and greatly expanded financial tracking and surveillance of people. True: terrorism databases (for example the Global Terrorism Database or New America data) show US terrorism deaths and attacks after 2001 were far lower than on 9/11, with no attack of comparable scale, and official records confirm the Patriot Act (2001) and the expansion of financial monitoring (for example under Patriot Act Title III and FinCEN) and of surveillance (for example the NSA programmes revealed in 2013). Mostly true: both parts hold but with a minor overstatement, for example several significant attacks did occur. Mixed: one part holds and the other does not, for example US terrorism after 2001 was substantial. Mostly false: the surveillance expansion was minor, or post-9/11 US terrorism was clearly substantial and the claim distorts it. False: the Patriot Act was not enacted, or there was no expansion of surveillance.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (4)

  1. E1 What Trump should do about terrorism (but probably won't) | Brookings Brookings Institution · 9 March 2022

    “At home, only 94 Americans have died from jihadist attacks since 9/11—far fewer than experts (including myself) anticipated in the scary weeks after 9/11.”
  2. E2 [PDF] Terrorism and Counterterrorism in the United States Since 9/11 - OSU John Mueller (Ohio State University / Cato Institute) and Mark G. Stewart (University of Newcastle), 'Dueling Delusions' working paper · 9 November 2011

    “a level of terrorist activity 15 to 20 times that seen in the years since 9/11, even when foiled plots are counted as incidents.”
  3. E3 The United States After 9/11: How Many Major Terrorist Attacks Have There Been In America Since 2001? International Business Times (IBTimes) · 9 September 2016

    “Despite heightened security measures since the coordinated attacks by al-Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001, there have been 37 terrorist acts on U.S. soil. While 14 of those terrorist acts did not have fatalities, there were 151 total deaths from 23 attacks”
  4. E4 USA Patriot Act of 2001 U.S. Government Publishing Office (Public Law 107-56, 107th Congress) · 11 September 2001

    “money laundering, and the defects in financial transparency on which money launderers rely, are critical to the financing of global terrorism and the provision of funds for terrorist attacks;”

Reasoning

On part (a), E1 reports that 94 Americans died in jihadist attacks in the US after 9/11, far fewer than experts had expected. E3 counts 37 terrorist acts on US soil since 2001, with 151 deaths in total. E2 likewise describes US terrorist activity after 9/11 as well below earlier levels. So no later attack came close to 9/11 in scale, although a number of deadly attacks did happen. On part (b), E4 is the text of the USA PATRIOT Act (Public Law 107-56), which confirms it was enacted and that it targeted money laundering and financial transparency; none of the evidence directly records the wider expansion of surveillance of people. Both parts mostly hold, but there were several significant attacks and the surveillance expansion is only partly shown, so the verdict is mostly true.

Cite this claim

Peter Thiel, “After 9/11 there was not much terrorism, and instead the US got the Patriot Act, extensive tracking of money flows and monitoring of people.” (said April 2024). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_f2486d9afa25, method 0.1.0+3e03e2df, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_f2486d9afa25

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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More factual claims by Peter Thiel

  1. Mostly false Factual 18 November 2024
    “The idea that the world was just too big a place, it could not possibly be destroyed, we didn't believe God would do it.”

    When people were writing about these things in the 18th and even 19th centuries, the idea was that the world was too big to be destroyed and that God would not do it.

  2. Resolved true Factual 18 November 2024
    “And then you end up building not dozens but thousands and thousands of them in the 60s and 70s.”

    Thousands of nuclear weapons, not just dozens, were built in the 1960s and 1970s.

  3. Mostly true Factual 30 September 2026
    “In Goethe's "Faust," he has a pact with the devil and he sort of gets this knowledge by morally dubious means.”

    In Goethe's Faust, Faust makes a pact with the devil and, in Thiel's words, "sort of" gains knowledge by morally dubious means.

  4. Mostly true Factual 30 September 2026
    “But it still always works out more for the best and Goethe's Faust gets redeemed.”

    In Goethe's Faust, things work out more for the best and Faust is redeemed.

  5. Mixed Factual 25 September 2026
    “I see much less of that urgency in Europe, where the instinct is still to wait.”

    Thiel said he sees much less urgency about AI among companies in Europe than in the US, and that in Europe the instinct is still to wait.

All of them

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