Summary: Chapter 11 Homeland Security

The protection of United States territory, sovereignty, population, and critical infrastructure against external threats and aggression is a main mission for the military. Although military size has decreased over the past years it is apparent that the advances in the technology by way of the military development is necessary. Regardless of the decrease in size the military paired with it’s capabilities for homeland security, which by definition is different then homeland defense. The military plays a huge part in both homeland efforts.

Government Facilities Sector is one of the largest and most complex sectors of the 17 critical infrastructures that’s included in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. The Department of Homeland Security, General Services Administration and the Federal Protective Service (FPS) were given the responsibilities as co-leads and Federal interface for this sector by PPD-21. The government facilities sector will arrange for the protection, safety, and security of all government assets, employees, and visitors to the facilities under its sector, as well as balanced management of physical and cyber risk, so that essential government functions and services are preserved without disruption. The execution of this will require GFS to reduce the nations

In life people try to comfort others in times of grieving. Leonard Pitts comforts his readers in his article, “We will go forward from this moment ” by trying to make since of the 9/11 attack. Pitts uses emotion and logic to persuade the Americans that the terrorists can do what they want to America, but America is tough enough to handle it.

“Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.” George W. Bush delivered this speech on the night of the September 11 attacks. The shattered steel of the Twin Towers, once towering the New York City skyline, forever changed America and its response to terrorism. The largest foreign attack on U.S. soil appropriately gave reason to Americans to recoil in fear and lose trust in the future, but in reality, the country displayed the opposite reaction. It rebuilt upon the shadow of the past. The World Trade Center, before and after the September 11 attacks, remains a symbol of world peace and perseverance

However, with its 22 agencies combined, there are mission areas that overlap within the department. One of which is the overlap between the Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security and Investigations and the U.S. Border Patrol. Aside from that, there is also an overlap between the Federal Bureau Investigation 's Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JITTFS) and the fusion centers primarily supported by the DHS. To resolve this, there is a need of the DHS to clearly establish its goals and priorities. Through this, the DHS is able to live up with how it is able to remove duplicative and redundant activities that drain the homeland security resources. Above all, the DHS can make sure that the general public is safe and free from any threats of terrorist attacks when it is domestically involved in the counterterrorism efforts, once the FBI is made as the lead agency of the

The mission statement for the Department of Homeland Security was developed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. It was immediately evident that our country was vulnerable to attacks from within and from outside of our borders. The White House acted quickly and within 11 days appointed Pennsylvania Governor, Tom Ridge, the first Director of Homeland Security in the White House (Homeland Security, 2015). Their mission statement is as follows: “The vision of homeland security is to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards” (Homeland Security, 2015). It is largely focused on federal preparations to deal with terrorism while trying to manage other duties including border security, customs and emergency management.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had a colorful 14-year history. Many will say that the DHS has created a hulking bureaucracy and has placed or lumped together a great deal of departments that do not have any related functions. DHS currently suffers from a great deal of structural issues, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Safety Administration, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement are in dire need of Presidential attention.

On September 11, 2001 four U.S. planes were hijacked by the terrorist group, al-Qaeda, and were used as weapons of mass destruction in a suicide terrorist attack which targeted four separate U.S. locations. Over 3,000 people died, more than 6,000 people were injured and there was over $10 billion dollars in damage, to property in the United States. These occurrences which took place on September 11, 2001 were among the most devastating hits to the United States in history, to date.  [1].

The money spent on protecting our country has went up greatly of the years since 9-11.(Green, 2014, para. 7) 9-11 made people to question if our country is really secure. This caused the government to make a lot of polices to help make our country safe for the people living there. These polices focused on security, immigration, defense and etc.

Civil liberties have been affected since the 9/11 events by the Patriot Act. According to N.A. (2003) “The Patriot Act decided to trade away certain civil liberties in exchange for what it hoped would be more security”. As said, the act meanwhile is concerned on providing effective security measures for people in the country, has encroached on freedoms. Like any restrictive law, it has been controversial. For example “many immigrants who had lived in the United States for decades have been rounded up and deported for minor visa violations, not for any connection to terrorism” stated N.A. (2003). But a law passed by the Congress could be so restrictive and so repressive? In general, some opinions seemed exaggerated, and more importantly the enforcement of the Patriot Act resulted in reduction of terrorism threat in America despite the controversy, which objective is to loosen the law’s grip on terrorism.

Since they have added more security there are still just as many terrorist attacks as there were before we supposable added more security. In the end result it is only making there job easier and our lives more stressful. “The government, have claimed that since this program has been released they have stopped more than 50 attacks”. Why would they release that information and not that they had this program in the first place? I believe that is a made up number to cover their butts for the real one. They need to stop being so self center and think about their country.

Compared to other departments of the federal government, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the youngest among all. After the tragic events of 9/11, DHS was created by the passing of the “Department of Homeland Security Act of 2002, and was an outgrowth of the Office of Homeland Security established by President George W. Bush after Sept. 11, 2001. Strong congressional support for a new federal department that would unify diverse and overlapping security functions of the federal government led to a White House proposal for the DHS in June, 2002, and the legislation was passed late the same year.” (Pearson Education, 2000 - 2015). The creation of the DHS allowed for the reorganizing of existing agencies with functions

To conclusion, the international community enough money is spend on counter-terrorism. It is very important to be able to prevent the root of terrorism in the long-run, than only fight terrorism. The immigration policy should be less strict, because they use a lot of national-based profiling, which is not correct. But, the intelligence reform is working, because there was a lot of money invested in security precautions, which meant better and more intelligence information.

September 11, 2001: this date has changed America forever. How far has airport security come so it can be as safe as it can be for all boarding passengers? Shortly after the terrorist attack on the United States of America, airports were closed; airports needed to recuperate by inheriting better technology. Airports started to use better scanners called Computer Tomography Scanners. This scanner checks baggage and carry on 's for harmful items. The USA put more air marshals on flights, and first class curtains were taken down. After 9/11 all 75,000 employees at airports had background checks. In all, airport security systems all around the country were required to be updated by the time another flight was ready.

Since then, the responsibilities of the Secret Service have shifted from counterfeit based purposes to securing national infrastructures, and to safeguard the financial systems of the United States. They have many duties inside these categories, such as; Prevent computer-based crimes, safeguard cyber banking and finance, treasury checks, bonds, prevent credit card fraud, prevent computer fraud, and prevent identity fraud. Recently in U.S. history there has been in increase in the quantity and sophistication of the amount of cyber crimes against US infrastructures. The secret service does a lot to put an end to these types of attacks. They make sure their agents are highly trained in computer forensics. Computer forensics are important to secret service agents because it is used to find any evidence for crimes that are stored digitally. To do this they created ECSAP, (Electronic Crimes Special Agent Program) what they do is train agents in network intrusion. Other tasks the secret service does to prevent cyber crimes and fraud is making emergency computer response teams, increasing relations with