Homeland Security, U.S. Department of

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was one of the largest organizational changes in the history of the United States government bureaucracy. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officially came into being on November 25, 2002, when the Homeland Security Act of 2002 was passed by the U.S. Congress. The formation of the Department of Homeland Security was a direct response by the George W. Bush administration to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. After the attacks, and the claims of responsibility for them by the al Qaeda terrorist group, preventing domestic terrorist attacks became the top priority of DHS. DHS officials sought to give a public impression of innovation and expertise at pursuing new lines of intelligence and preparation for all hazards, terrorism in particular. This was part of a larger public relations campaign conducted by the Bush Administration to demonstrate that the threat of terrorism and future terrorist acts was being taken very seriously, and that a large number of federal resources had been mobilized to wage the war on terror. The war was very often waged in the public eye, with public relations tools such as the color-coded threat level indicating the likelihood of a terrorist attack broadcast on several major media outlets at a time.

According to policy researcher Peter May, the war on terror was not so much innovative in terms of pursuing new methods in combating terrorism as it was in introducing terrorism as a concept to the variety of agencies under which it was organized. Given the extraordinary breadth of agencies organized under the DHS umbrella, refocusing them all on terror involved significant operational and rhetorical efforts.

Domestic preparedness shifted its focus from civil disruption caused by weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to also include civil disruption by terrorist incident. Food safety agencies became concerned with food-related terrorist incidents, information security agencies focused on terrorist cyber and communication attacks, public health agencies focused on bioterrorism, transportation authorities focused on terrorist attacks upon aviation, mass transit, railroads, and ports, and technological accident preparedness, and response teams took on the role of preventing terrorist attacks on nuclear plants, pipelines, or other facilities.

Similarly, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was previously focused on natural disaster preparedness and response, and although agency heads initially resisted integration into the DHS organization, the agency was recast as an all-hazards consequence management organization. Arguably, the implicit inclusion of terrorism prevention and response within this all-hazards framework did not enhance FEMA's overall strategic effectiveness. FEMA staff and operations were simply absorbed, and retooled bureaucratically to participate on the National Incident Management System (NIMS) developed by DHS. This new set of regulations [Page 308]and response protocol superseded existing protocols and response methods already in place in favor of the new-found focus on terrorism, without increased funding and personnel on par with other programs. Critics have argued that subsequently, and despite the intense ramp up of effort, concern, and innovation in responding to threats to the domestic population of the United States (or at least their portrayal as part of public relations), the federal government actually became less adept at responding to other hazards besides terrorism. Evidence for this alleged decline in effectiveness can be found in the next major domestic disaster in August 2005: Hurricane Katrina.

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