3.2 DHS Difference

WHO? The Department of Homeland Security.

WHAT? Closed many of the gaps that contributed to the failures of 9/11.

WHEN? By providing a specific government perspective that was absent prior to 9/11.

WHERE? DHS authority was constrained to the US, but its missions are global.

WHY? To prevent another 9/11.

So how did the Department of Homeland Security improve the safety and security of Americans? Some of the changes were visible, most were not. Perhaps the most visible change was at the airports. Airlines were responsible for their own security. Their failure on 9/11 was attributed to a greater concern for profits over security. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the best way it was thought to tighten airport security was to remove it from the airlines. Barely a month after 9/11, President Bush signed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act creating the Transportation Security Administration. Airport security was now federalized. A year later, TSA was made part of DHS. Less visible to the public was the fact that all aspects of transportation and border security were consolidated under DHS. What were once managed by four executive departments were now managed by one. INS was dissolved and its two functions separated to eliminate conflict of interest. Assistance went to US Customs and Immigration Service, and deportations to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Also less visible but perhaps more important were changes to emergency management. The 58,150 fire stations and 17,985 police departments are all locally funded and independently operated. Prior to 9/11, the Federal government had no authority to intervene and no agency to care. Because they are independent, it is not uncommon for neighboring jurisdictions to have incompatible radios that can’t talk to each other. This is one reason why 343 firefighters died on 9/11. 9/11 also exposed the difficulty of coordinating a massive emergency response operation across dozens of jurisdictions. A problem that was not just local to New York, but endemic across the country. With the creation of DHS, the Federal government still has no authority to intervene, but at least now it has an agency to care. Using the power of the purse, DHS initiated the homeland security grant program to persuade State and Local governments to adopt certain measures. In 2003, the DHS Homeland Security Grant Program funded training and exercises to encourage State and Local governments to adopt the Incident Command System. ICS provides a standard method for organizing units from different jurisdictions into a cohesive team and directing their actions towards common objectives in a large-scale emergency response. The DHS Homeland Security Grant Program continues to funding training, exercise, and equipment to improve the capability of First Responders across the nation. But what about the threat of catastrophic destruction from non-state actors? The best defense is actionable intelligence in order to stop a criminal before they commit a crime. Actionable intelligence means knowing who, what, when, and where, in advance of a crime happening. Outside the US, CIA is the lead agency for foreign intelligence. Inside the US, FBI is the lead agency for domestic intelligence. The two agencies operate independently under different authorities. They are purposely separated to protect civil liberties. Whereas the CIA can employ broad surveillance overseas, the FBI must seek individual warrants to protect Fourth Amendment rights. This separation was blamed for the agencies not tracking and following the 9/11 hijackers in the US. Congress briefly considered overcoming the separation by joining CIA and FBI under DHS. Past transgressions by both agencies quickly dashed any such plans as too risky for American civil liberties. Instead, DHS joined the Intelligence Community and was given oversight of CIA and FBI terrorism data, and the CIA National Counterterrorism Center established for all-source terrorism intelligence. DHS did NOT become the lead federal agency for counterterrorism. That role remained with FBI. In many ways, the US is safer because of DHS. That is not the same as saying the US is safe. Safety is not an absolute condition. Nowhere and nobody is every completely safe. That is because you can’t stop a hurricane, and you can’t stop a determined attacker.