Department of Homeland Security

In the days immediately following the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, [Page 612]2001, the nation was witness to a quick succession of official acts taken by the federal government to help prevent further such catastrophes. These acts included a presidential proclamation of a state of national emergency, the presidential authorization of the Use of Military Force bill, and the speedy establishment of 94 antiterrorism task forces throughout the country, one for each U.S. attorney office. Probably the most striking and far-reaching action taken by the administration of President George W. Bush in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, was the presidential announcement to Congress of the creation of the Office of Homeland Security, with ex-governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge as its director. President Bush's announcement became the first official step in the development of what was to become the Department of Homeland Security, representing both the most sweeping effort to thwart acts of terrorism and one of the most dramatic examples of government restructuring at the federal level in U.S. history.

On the evening of June 6, 2002, President Bush announced, in a nationally televised speech, that he would ask Congress to approve a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security entrusted with the primary responsibility of protecting the United States from attacks from terrorist groups. The plan was that such a department would inherit a work force and funding from existing federal agencies that the proposed new department would absorb. The departments to be absorbed included the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the Secret Service, Border Patrol, Customs Service, and the Coast Guard. And, as reflected through the results of public surveys, the idea won wide public support; 72% of respondents to a Gallup poll expressed full approval.

On November 25, 2002, President Bush signed into law congressional legislation authorizing the official creation of the Department of Homeland Security and appointed Tom Ridge, then the White House's domestic security coordinator, as the department's first secretary. The secretary of the Navy, Gordon R. England, was appointed to the number two post at the department. As envisioned by the Bush administration at that time, the primary objectives of the Department of Homeland Security were publicly stated as (1) the prevention of terrorist attacks, (2) the reduction of vulnerabilities to terrorism, (3) the minimization of damages of terrorist attacks that may occur as a result of terrorism, and (4) the assistance in recovery from attacks that may occur as a result of terrorism.

On March 1, 2003, the final step of merging 22 federal departments, offices, and agencies and nearly 170,000 employees into the super-department known as the Department of Homeland Security was taken. The government entities moved to the main divisions of the Department of Homeland Security included the Justice Department's Immigration and Naturalization Services and the Office of Domestic Preparedness, the Secret Service and Customs Service from the Department of the Treasury, and the Transportation and Security Administration and the Coast Guard from the Transportation Department. The inauguration of the new department was met with a combination of high expectations and some pessimism. The pessimism centered on three major areas: the ability to successfully manage such a mammoth organization; the potential for rivalries with existing national intelligence-gathering agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and the department's ability to accomplish its goals with the amount budgeted for its first year of function—$33 billion. Regardless of differing opinions on the department's future prospects, few could argue that the birth of the Department of Homeland Security represented the most ambitious consolidation of federal agencies since the joining of the War and Navy Departments to create the Defense Department during the Truman administration in 1947.

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