Americans feel safer since 9/11, but still on alert

Nine years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, over half of Americans say they feel safer than they did before that day, according to a new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll. But many are still concerned another attack may be on the horizon.

In the survey, released Friday, 53 percent of respondents said they believe the U.S. is safer now than it was in the security climate prior to September 11, 2001. That number has stayed near the halfway mark, up from the 48 percent who said they felt safer when Fox asked in 2007 but down from the 58 percent who answered the question in 2004. 30 percent of respondents in Friday's survey say the country is less safe than it was before 9/11.

We asked a few folks in Washington, D.C.--a city that was on high alert after the Pentagon and subsequent anthrax attacks in 2001--what they thought about our current security situation.

One looked at it with a Zen-like attitude: "I feel safer. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, so I feel better than I did that day...I was scared to death."

"I don't really think about danger at all to be honest, maybe because I'm military and my spiritual walk in life, as lame as that sounds," said Patrick Morgan, who thinks individual vigilance has played a role in keeping America safe. "I think security has tightened up a little more than it used to be. I think people are more conscious of their surroundings than they were before."

But Jean Claude Leon still sees a threat out there: "I don't see any real means that have made things safer," he said. "There is more security, but it all could happen again. There can always be a breach in security; it's not a perfect security system."

A group of security experts released a report Friday warning that the U.S. has "no strategy" to combat new threats, including homegrown terror and smaller-scale Al Qaida attacks.