Homeland Security
As authors Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry observe in their book Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), "Catastrophic terrorism is a militaryscale threat divorced from the traditional context of foreign military conflict. This is entirely new in the American experience. Catastrophic terrorism challenges the U.S. government to reinvent a new national security structure from the ground up."
After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S. government and public placed a new emphasis on "homeland security" and efforts to protect against homeland terrorism. Anthrax attacks in late 2001 encouraged a new examination of bioterrorism as well. The country was nervous and wanted to put new structures in place to prevent against future attacks.
In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. Congress, the president, and the intelligence community all knew a new terrorist attack could come at any time. Consequently, they believed that government efforts to protect against terrorism should increase and that these efforts should be directed by the White House. The federal government also bolstered the intelligence community—those parts of the government, including federal law enforcement, that cooperate with the U.S. Department of Defense to maintain national security.
President George W. Bush set up a new Office of Homeland Security (OHS) in the White House and appointed then–Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge to head it. The OHS coordinated the work of law enforcement officials, the military, and the intelligence community. Its major responsibilities included (1) supporting "first responders," those first on the scene of a homeland terrorist incident or catastrophe; (2) defending against bioterrorism; (3) securing America's borders; and (4) using up-to-date technology to secure the United States in the future.
The initial role of the OHS was to coordinate first responders to a terrorist or bioterrorist attack. First responders consist of the country's more than one million firefighters (approximately 750,000 of whom are volunteers); 556,000 full-time local police personnel, including approximately 436,000 sworn law enforcement officers; and 291,000 sheriff's office personnel, including 186,000 sworn officers. Another group of first responders comprises the country's 155,000 emergency medical technicians.
On March 12, 2002, the OHS implemented a system of threat conditions as a way of providing uniform advisories of possible terrorist threats. The five threat conditions range from "low" to "severe." Severe risk may require the closing of government offices and the deployment of emergency personnel. Intermediate threat conditions are "guarded" (a general risk of terrorist attacks), "elevated" (a significant risk of terrorist attacks), and "high" (a high risk of terrorist attacks). Colors were assigned to each threat level: low is indicated by green; guarded by blue; elevated by yellow; high by orange; and severe by red.
On June 6, 2002, President Bush proposed a major reorganization of the federal government, creating a permanent cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on various ideas put forward by Ridge, Congress, and outside studies and commissions, President Bush's plan sought to unify responsibility for protecting against terrorist attacks on American soil. Prominent among the twenty-two federal agencies included in the new department are the Coast Guard, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Border Patrol, Customs Service, Transportation Security Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Four divisions within the new department, reflecting its four major responsibilities, are:
- Border and Transportation Security
- Emergency Preparedness and Response
- Science and Technology
- Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection
H.R. 5710, which was approved by the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Bush on November 26, 2002, officially established the Department of Homeland Security. Besides the establishment of the new department, the primary highlights of this 484-page document included: reorganization and tighter control of immigration within the United States; a shift of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice; a call for greater research and development into possible increases in the Homeland Security infrastructure; and a provision of separate funds for the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, which would help identify cutting-edge technology to aid the department. The law also called for greater coordination between the government and private sector to increase various critical infrastructures (such as power grids and telecommunication lines) across the country. Security measures strengthening the Coast Guard and airport security, along with the allocation of greater funds for domestic preparedness, were also written into the bill.
Some critics of the new department feared that, with 180,000 employees and a $36 billion budget, it would lack simplicity and flexibility. Others contended that the work of assembling this huge superagency might take away from more urgent actions needed to combat terrorism. That the intended new agency might not pay enough attention to the roles of state and local governments and the private sector caused some concern, as did its potentially insufficient enforcement powers and limited access to raw data from the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, and National Security Agency, none of which were incorporated into the department. Counterproposals included appointing high-level liaisons to force cooperation among units of the federal government and changing existing agencies to improve their effectiveness at fighting terrorism (for example, establishing a special domestic security group within the FBI like Great Britain's MI5).
Airport/Port Security
After September 11, 2001, the security of air travel became a top concern. Airline travelers soon became accustomed to waiting in longer lines at airport ticket counters, baggage check-ins, and other preflight security checkpoints as more strict attention was paid to checking passenger identification and to other security measures. Congress took the responsibility for airport preflight and security screening away from the airlines and placed it with a new Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The TSA, with an expected workforce of 35,000 to 40,000 employees (including 28,000 passenger and baggage screeners), was predicted to become the largest U.S. government agency created since the 1960s. However, Congress also provided for a process through which airlines might be permitted to go back to previous methods of contracting out screening/security services within three years after the new TSA security inspectors began their duties.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, the United States had experienced a rash of airplane hijackings to Cuba. Consequently, in 1968 the FAA launched a highly secret federal "sky marshal" program. Sky marshals are certified law enforcement officers who ride anonymously on certain air flights. They are allowed to carry firearms. Their primary responsibility is to maintain law and order during the flight. At the time of the September 11 terrorist attacks, thirty-three sky marshals were working within the air transport system, mostly on international flights to and from the United States. After September 11, the Federal Air Marshall Service was made part of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and the number of air marshals was increased.
In addition, security changes to airplanes themselves were implemented after the 9/11 hijackings. The FAA ordered temporary reinforcement of cockpit doors. This strengthened doors not only against intrusion but also against penetration by small-arms fire and grenades. The FAA required airlines to install permanent cockpit door improvements by 2003. Airlines have also offered special personal defense training to their pilots and flight attendants.
Much debate ensued over whether pilots should be allowed to carry guns. Many people, including many of the pilots themselves, supported the idea of armed pilots, while others preferred nonlethal weapons such as stun guns, tazer guns, or mace. Still others believed reinforced cockpit doors and specially trained air marshals should be enough to stave off any attack. After weighing the pros and cons of the issue, H.R. 4635, the Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act, was passed on July 10, 2002. It allows airline pilots to undergo weapons training and carry arms in the cockpit.
Other measures were also implemented to enhance overall transportation security. One of these was the scanning of a small percentage of the thousands of cargo containers that arrive at U.S. seaports each day. The scanning is done to search for explosives, radioactive materials, and biohazards.
The Patriot Act of 2001
The September 11 attacks caused the government to round up suspects vigorously, attempting to increase security at the possible expense of civil liberties. The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies proceeded to detain, hold, or deport approximately a thousand people on immigration and other violations. Law enforcement agencies obtained more leeway to wiretap and detain suspects as well.
These authorizations came primarily through the Patriot Act, which was passed by Congress, signed by the president, and enacted on October 26, 2001. The act, which is 342 pages long, made changes, some large and some small, to more than fifteen statutes. The government was given the authority to monitor the online search engine requests of almost any American, obtain a wiretap of a suspected individual's cell or regular phone via one request to a judge, and add DNA samples to a federal DNA database of almost anyone convicted of "any crime of violence."
The Patriot Act also gave the FBI more access to the medical, financial, mental health, and educational records of individuals without having to show evidence of a crime and without a court order. The bill expanded the government's ability to conduct secret searches and permitted the attorney general to detain and incarcerate noncitizens based on suspicion of any act or behavior that might be seen as a threat to national security and to deny readmission to the United States of noncitizens (including lawful permanent residents) under certain conditions. Yet other steps were designed to tighten U.S. immigration practices and keep terrorists out of the country in the first place. "As of May 5, 2004," according to Report from the Field: The USA Patriot Act at Work (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, July 2004), "the Department has charged 310 defendants with criminal offenses as a result of terrorism investigations since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and 179 of those defendants have already been convicted."
Some Americans were alarmed that as the federal government moved to deal decisively with terrorist threats, civil liberties were seemingly restricted. Determining the appropriate balance between security precautions and personal freedom is a continuing matter of debate. As the National Commission on Terrorism wrote in its 2001 report to Congress, Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001), "U.S. leaders must find the appropriate balance by adopting counterterrorism policies which are effective but also respect the democratic traditions which are the bedrock of America's strength."
War on Terrorism
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush declared a "war on terrorism" with four basic principles. First, no concessions or deals would be made to individuals or groups holding any U.S. citizen hostage. Second, terrorists would be tracked down and brought to justice for their crimes, no matter how long it took. Third, any state that sponsors terrorism would be forced to change its behavior through isolation and applied pressure. Finally, training would be provided under the Antiterrorism Assistance program to strengthen the counterterrorist capabilities of countries working with the United States.
The war on terrorism has been unlike any other in U.S. history. In this war, the U.S. government and its citizens ceased to look upon the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as shields from attack. For the first time, an American war was being conducted not against a foreign nation but against transnational enemies—al Qaeda and other terrorist groups operating across international boundaries. These enemies had managed to bring major destruction and devastation, if not conventional war, to America's doorstep.
Even with knowledge of existing terrorist groups and cells, the government had to pin down who, what, or where the enemy may be. Abroad, the president and Congress targeted al Qaeda, the radical Muslim extremist group linked with the 9/11 attacks. Al Qaeda's leader, exiled Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden, was known to be operating terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the president sent thousands of U.S. troops, hundreds of ships and planes, and many bombs and other weapons to Afghanistan. U.S. forces attacked the ruling Taliban party that had harbored bin Laden and other al Qaeda terrorists.
Within a few months, the United States captured taped evidence that they believed proved bin Laden was the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. The tapes showed him gloating over the unexpected degree of his "success"—that is, getting the World Trade Center's twin towers to collapse. In earlier videos released by al Qaeda shortly after the attacks, bin Laden praised the attacks and taunted the American people. Intelligence officials believe he had hoped to foster rebellions in Muslim countries to become a folk hero.
The military actions ordered by President Bush in Afghanistan were generally considered successful. The war, code-named Operation Enduring Freedom, included U.S. use of twelve thousand bombs and missiles, the killing of at least three thousand enemy troops, and the capture of seven thousand or more hostile combatants. Although most of the forces killed or captured in the military effort were only indirectly related to al Qaeda's global terrorist activities, the action succeeded in ending the fundamentalist Taliban's rule over Afghanistan and in eliminating Afghanistan as an official safe haven for al Qaeda.
In 2003 the United States resolved to depose Iraq's leader Saddam Hussein because of his continuing refusal to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors. There was widespread fear that Iraq might pass along deadly WMD materials to terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, for use against Americans. Following a series of failed diplomatic moves, the United States and a coalition of some thirty allied nations invaded Iraq and removed Hussein from power in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The former dictator was located and arrested in December 2003. While controversy still surrounds the U.S. decision to invade Iraq, little doubt remains that Iraqi support for terrorists is no longer a threat.
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