To be fair, the author perhaps does allude indirectly to the attacks by trying to point out a perceived hypocrisy of Google being willing to operate under the patriot act:<p><i>To combat terrorism after the "9/11" terrorist attack, the U.S. has permitted police to search civilian emails and even monitor their communications without permission</i><p>A related post in the side-links does opine on the attacks directly though: Google probes inside job in hackings.