Homeland Security

Elements of Homeland Security

Homeland security can be organized into three categories: preparedness, incident management, and recovery. Preparedness against terrorist attacks has seemingly occupied all the attention and funds of the U.S. Congress since the 9/11 attacks. In preparation for another catastrophe, Tom Ridge spent over a billion dollars on fire apparatus, radiological protection gear, and other anticipated post-incident equipment during his tenure as secretary of homeland security (2003–2005). Though this was not necessarily money ill spent, the 9/11 Commission found that intelligence failures were responsible for the successes of the terrorist attacks, not a lack of preparedness. For example, no committee report suggested that additional fire apparatus in New York City, Pennsylvania, or Washington would have swayed the outcome of the 9/11 attacks or mitigated the loss of life. And yet little federal funding went to intelligence operations immediately following the 2001 attacks; instead, fire departments across the United States reaped the monetary benefits of a nation mourning the loss of 341 firefighters in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Therefore, in the years following 9/11, the United States was better prepared to react to a cataclysmic attack but was no better prepared to proactively thwart terrorism than it had been beforehand.

However, in 2004 the federal National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was formed as a dedicated (i.e., task-specific), intelligence agency reporting to the director of national intelligence (DNI) and the president of the United States. The NCTC replaced its earlier iteration, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), created soon after 9/11. Although now a function of the DNI, it was originated in DHS but experienced difficulty finding an institutional home, moving briefly to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Because it is the most speculative, preparedness is the most controversial of the three categories of homeland security. Emergency managers and homeland security professionals must anticipate the next catastrophic event and move funds in the direction of proactive training and equipment acquisition. Law enforcement intelligence must be prepared to anticipate and interdict a terrorist plot with modern information collection and analysis operations. However, at present, law enforcement intelligence operations are usually poorly prepared to predict appropriate responses to natural disasters such as tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes that occur with far greater frequency than terrorist attacks. Other facets of public safety frequently do not participate in intelligence sharing as either information providers or intelligence consumers. In the United States, public safety agencies often have no local, interagency, and coordinated mutual aid plans. Neither do they engage in collaborative planning, training, or joint operations. And, unfortunately, interagency jealousies usually prevent collaborative efforts in public safety asset and logistical management even in the worst of times. [Page 266]Therefore, even a decade after the 9/11 attacks, with scarce exception, homeland security preparedness and planning remain commonly facilitated at local levels by individual agencies.

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