Homeland Security

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HOMELAND SECURITY

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the public was alarmed and demanded urgent action to provide homeland security. A wide array of existing government agencies were responsible for different aspects

of security; none were structured efficiently to deal with terrorism. In the fall of 2001, letters containing anthrax, a biological weapon, arrived in the mailrooms of a tabloid newspaper, a television network, and Congress, indicating that terrorist threats could come in many forms and could prove challenging to stop.

President George W. Bush created the Office of Homeland Security in October 2001, with former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as its director. In January 2003 it was upgraded to a new cabinet-level department, the Department of Homeland Security, with Ridge as the first secretary. The department's stated mission was to "lead the unified national effort to secure America" and to "prevent and deter terrorist attacks and protect against and respond to threats and hazards to the nation." The goals of the department are awareness, prevention, protection, response, recovery, service, and organizational excellence. All in all, 180,000 employees from twenty-two agencies were regrouped to fall under the jurisdiction of the new department.

As part of heightened security across the nation, airports became the front line of defense. Because airplanes were used as missiles on September 11, Congress authorized a new Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS). This system required passengers to give certain personal information so that they could be screened for any possible terrorist links.

The airlines began to enforce new, stricter regulations regarding what items passengers were allowed to bring on board. Passengers could no longer carry scissors, screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, box cutters, bats, golf clubs, or pepper spray on board, but these items were permissible in checked baggage. More comprehensive security checkpoints caused long lines and delays. Airline personnel were instructed to take seriously any utterance of a threatening word in an airport, even in a joking fashion. Such utterances could result in arrest. After the "shoe bomber" incident of December 2001, in which a terrorist with an undetected bomb device in his shoe was allowed to board a plane, passenger footwear was screened more closely. Wary passengers had no choice but to accept these new complications of air travel as necessary encumbrances.

The Department of Homeland Security created and updated a national terrorism "threat advisory," featuring a color-coded alert system. Under this system, each color denotes a different degree or condition of threat. Low is green, guarded is blue, elevated is yellow, high is orange, and severe is red. The measures that could be implemented under the most severe threat include closing government buildings and restricting transportation systems. The threat level is changed according to intelligence obtained by United States agents. In establishing the threat conditions, the government evaluates the credibility of a threat and whether it is imminent or specific in nature, and issues direction to local law enforcement authorities as necessary.

The effects of the new precautions were widespread. Privately owned office buildings in major cities began to upgrade security measures, including access-card identification systems and turnstiles that prevent people without cards from entering elevator banks. City, state, and federal government buildings increased their use of metal detectors, video cameras, and other security measures.

New York City remained on a higher alert than the rest of the nation. The National Guard was called on to protect some key locations in the city such as Penn Station. Major events such as the dropping of the ball in Times Square on New Year's Eve were heavily protected and became exercises in vigilance. A jittery city took no chances; abandoned packages were treated with all seriousness, and subway posters warned passengers to report suspicious behavior.

Civil libertarians complained that some of the security measures adopted by the federal government were too restrictive and even unconstitutional. One example is the detention of terrorism suspects. Hundreds of people, many of them immigrants, with suspected ties to terrorism were detained after September 11, under conditions of extreme secrecy. The Justice Department held suspected "dirty bomb" conspirator José Padilla, a U.S. citizen, and then transferred him to the control of the military but did not charge him with a crime nor provide access to a lawyer. The government labeled him an "enemy combatant" and stated that this was acceptable grounds for holding him indefinitely.

Homeland security has a twofold mission: to protect the nation against the physical threat of terrorism on American soil, and to reassure the psyche of a nation shaken by the events of September 11. Providing security while avoiding being overprotective has proven to be a great challenge. Americans will continue to debate the proper balance between the need for increased government power to provide security and the need to protect civil liberties from excessive government authority.

bibliography

Goldberg, Danny; Goldberg, Victor; and Greenwald, Robert, eds. It's a Free Country: Personal Freedom in America After September 11. New York: RDV Books, 2002.

Woodward, Bob. Bush at War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.