Homeland Security

When the Department of Homeland Security was first created in 2003, it was hailed by both left and right as the Great Unifier and the solution to the conflict and lack of dialogue between a myriad of governmental agencies. Originally opposed by the administration after the great terrorist attacks in September 2001, when it was originally proposed by Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman, it was finally created after the adminstration decided that the tasks at hand were far greater than those the much smaller Office of Homeland Security could handle. However, on both left and right were also its critics, some who said it was not far-reaching enough while others stated that it would do nothing but add another layer of bureaucracy and centralization to an already overbureaucratic and overcentralized system. Both were right on some points and both were wrong on others.

The true effectiveness of the Department has yet to be determined, for it has not been around long enough to accurately gauge it. It is true that since its inception there has not been a major terrorist attack on our soil. It is also true that it failed to successfully respond to the natural disasters that were hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In some areas of security, the Department has been a force for reform; in other areas, reform has stagnated. One thing is for sure: institutional rivalries, which the Department was meant to ameliorate, continue to this day. It is its success in minimizing these rivalries, cutting bureaucracy, and increasing the responsiveness of the agencies to security and natural disasters that will gauge if the department has been successful. Until the Department has existed for a long enough period of time to do that, I will remain neutral on this issue.

Some improvements to the agency that I do advocate:

1. Double funding currently allocated to the U.S. Coast Guard, an underappreciated organization that has been underfunded for decades
2. Establish an Office for the Protection of the Constitution, like that which exists in Germany, to monitor fifth-columnists in extreme-left, extreme-right, religious extremist, and environmental extremist groups, that threaten the integrity of the union, and provide data to the Department of Justice for prosecutorial purposes
3. Establish rules that clearly outline the roles and responsibilities of the agencies under its supervision to minimize bureaucratic overlap and more evenly distribute responsibilities according to capability
4. Eliminate, or combine, agencies or programs that are unnecessary or unproductive