Discuss The Importances Of Homeland Security (Essay Sample)

Homeland Security
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Homeland Security
Abstract
The question, if U.S. is safe after the creation of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is often asked. This was after the country was hit by terrorist on 9/11 and this question seeks to understand what the country is doing to ensure that it doesn’t fall vulnerable to such an attack again. Although there are challenges that persist, the creation of DHS has made U.S. safer, stronger as well more resilient than there before. Over the past 15 years, United State has become more safe and capable to deal with threats from terrorist. The country has developed a more secure framework which protects the country both from domestic crimes and external threats while enhancing local, state, and federal ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from any attack that may hit the country. The country has worked closely with other agencies of law enforcement and intelligence service to make that the country stay safe in borders as well as airports. Its collaboration with other partners such as FBI is important in improving information sharing to enhance country’s capability to identify, mitigate as well as respond to any emerging threat from abroad or domestic.
Homeland Security is an umbrella term used in America for the efforts of the nation in ensuring a safe and secure homeland. It also ensures resilient against terrorism as well as other hazards where the aspirations, interests, and ways of life of Americans can flourish to the national efforts of preventing terror attacks, in U.S., reduce vulnerability to terrorism cases, and also minimize damage from an attack that may occur. It does not constrain itself to cases of terrorism only but to all incidences that may disrupt the peace of the American residence.
The Department of Homeland Security was created in the aftermath of September 11th, 2011 terrorist attack. The attack killed 2,977 persons, and the country was put in a fear state. The Americans felt vulnerable not only to diseases, accidents, criminals or tornadoes but also now to the outside enemy. The Department was assigned the role of federal preparation to deal with terrorism issues while still managing other duties such as border security, emergency, and customs management. According to Nael (2003), the Department of Homeland Security was created to focus on combining emergency management service, intelligence, law enforcement agencies and safety of air and transportation.
In an interview with Barrack Obama, Brill (2016) stated that the former President of the United state confirmed that the country is safe after the formation of Homeland Security. It has however not been easy to maintain the security as the system has been faced a series of extravagant boondoggles on the implementation. During the interview, Obama said that United state is much safer from such orchestrated attack which almost brought the country to stand still. It is going to be harder for any terrorist to pull off something or get into the country. He also said that there are still some threatening security gaps the country has not effectively filled.
He acknowledged that the world today is full of people who want to exploit those gaps. Some of these people live within U.S and can access the military weapons which they use to terrorize people. These people are not discouraged by dying while committing these crimes but less in magnitude than that of September 11th which makes it hard to detect them in advance (Brill, 2016). America is known globally for having tight security, but Barrack in this interview admitted that what they have to defend against has outpaced the country's progress.
During the interview, Brill asked the president if the country is adjusted both emotionally and politically so as to make better decisions as people and the government at large to deal with any threat that may come by. He answered that the country is not yet there. This has been caused by divided democracy in which spans of attention are very short and low engagement of civil activities and high levels of governing-by- headlines.
The FBI officials announced, in one of its briefings, that most of the imminent domestic threats from terrorists originated from animal rights activists. National Security Division which was established in 2006 has since then consolidated other departments of counterterrorism and counterespionage. The federal government of United States also tripled the FBI budget to help them be able to investigate and prosecute federal crimes which have been committed and also to help them stop terrorist attacks before they can even strike.
Many new resources in America that are concerned with technology upgrade, intelligence analyst, as well as an additional analyst, has been directed to protect the nation from attacks and where possible be able to detect and prevent any criminal activities from happening (Brill, 2016). In an interview with James Comey, director of FBI, More than half of all agents have been taken to the national security, a number that had grown from the previous quarter before the attack happened.
Since the creation of the homeland security, the country has been safer since the U.S. security agencies have even shared the same threat databases and watch lists which are always kept up to date. Through sharing of intelligence between the securities agencies, it has, therefore, become very easy to coordinate and ensure that anything that is planned to disrupt the peace of the U.S residence is detonated easily.
The attack of September 11 can be blamed entirely on the airport security line. About 16,000 employees were poorly trained, private screeners paid low wages, and who operated under guidelines that were approved by FAA, which would allow up to 4 inches of knives and box cutters that the terrorists used. The cheap labor used was aimed at reducing the cost of operation and sustain the security line. Today, security has been improved with 46,000 screeners, who are federal employees and have been trained well by the Transportation Security Administration. In the fast moving lines, there are some security gaps that has been created by the failures of the management, especially during summer and spring.
Unlike there before, the screening process has become tighter and stricter. In airplanes, the cockpit doors have been strengthening to block someone who might luckily pass the screeners without detection. The formation of Homeland Security has worked with other security agencies to employ more new marshals who are now working in the on the planes to enhance security measures.
America has also secured its ports by investing billions of dollars in technology that may detect anything that is illegal entering the country. Some of the technology used here is the radiation detectors to check on the smuggled goods on the containers which can detect anything in the container that poses a threat. U.S. has taken precaution even further in which it has set its station in foreign nations to screen all containers before they are set to sail to their country.
About a week after the September 11 attack, U.S. was for the second time caught unaware the time envelopes which had deadly anthrax had been sent to two Senate offices and media houses, killing about five people and others hospitalized (Brill, 2016). When this biological attack happened, there was no medical expert to call or any emergency antidote to control the situation and help prevent people from dying. Here America was caught hands down without any preparation on the same.
Today, the country is well prepared with a collection of federal agencies that has been kept ready in case of such attack. The specialist has been trained to handle such cases, and required resources have been put in place with enough antidote. After the attack, the country embarked on a serious sensitization of all citizens about Homeland Security. They did this through trade shows and conferences. In colleges and universities across the country, the government encouraged these institutions to start offering unit in homeland security and graduate people with it.
Despite spending billions of dollars to protect the country, the attackers still have some access through the security gaps and are harming the U.S. residents. For instance nine months after the 9/11 attack; during the celebration of Independence Day, the country was biologically attacked with a deadly chemical which led to the death of 6053 Americans. Another attack was later discovered that was spreading disease in animals in rural areas. The biological attack has gone undetected in the country, a situation that has posed a great threat to the lives of many.
The terrorist was successful in all these attacks since they took advantage of the failure that was the Congress and government side. In biological attack, they took advantage of government's lack of early detection of the disease in the environment, failure to quickly diagnose the disease, failure to identify its presence in animals, failure in poor funding of health care, failure of lack of stockpile to treat the disease, as well as failure to prioritize health care on national level.
On 26th October 2001, George W. Bush signed into law a Patriotic Act which allowed the FBI to freely search phones records, emails, as well as individual financial records without necessarily obtaining a court order to do so. This law was also extended by President Barrack Obama. Secretary of the Treasury is also allowed to view all financial transactions from overseas. The immigration authorities have also been given the power to detain and deport anyone who act suspiciously about causing a terrorist attack.
This Act reduced the restriction on agencies of enforcing the law to have the freedom to search for any private ...