Question

For Homeland Security

How has the concept of homeland security changed over time, from before the September 11^th attacks until after Hurricane Katrina?

Answer 1

The United States, through a concerted national effort that galvanizes the strengths and capabilities of Federal, State, local, and Tribal governments; the private and non-profit sectors; and regions, communities, and individual citizens — along with our partners in the international community — will work to achieve a secure Homeland that sustains our way of life as a free, prosperous, and welcoming America. - Homeland Security Vision, 2007 National Strategy. The vision announced six years after the September 11, 2001 attacks is another effort to clarify why the nation engages in the activity called homeland security. It draws a picture of everyone working together to ensure the United States remains a free, wealthy, and friendly nation.

            Until September 11, 2001, the United States had limited experience with terrorist attacks on our own soil, and only intermittent experience with attacks overseas. During the 1970s and 80s, airline hijackings and overseas bombings were the focus of most terrorist activity. In 1993, violent Islamist extremists bombed the World Trade Centre, causing six deaths and more than a thousand injuries, but failing to significantly damage the structures themselves. During the next decade, several domestic focused Islamist terrorist plots were foiled at the planning stage; however, additional attacks were conducted overseas, by operatives of Hezbollah killing US service personnel in 1996 at the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, by al Qaeda bombing of US embassies in East Africa in 1998, and the attack on the USS Cole near Yemen in 2000. The most deadly attack domestically during the 1990s was the Oklahoma City bombing, carried out by Timothy McVeigh, an anti-government extremist. All of these attacks and attempts were addressed through the existing criminal justice system. Under that legal architecture, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, as well as a host of other statutes and regulations, governed domestic intelligence collection.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 and the consequent retrospective investigations –such as the 9/11 Commission Report – exposed the inadequacy of this architecture in addressing and thwarting further attacks. The inability to coordinate information collection and integration among various agencies led to the failure to identify patterns of behaviour that might have provided warning of attack. In the aftermath of another American catastrophe—the terrorist attacks of September 11—we transformed our government architecture, policies, and strategies in a comprehensive effort to defeat terrorism and better protect and defend the homeland. With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the post of Director of National Intelligence, the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, and the codification of both the National Counterterrorism Centre and the National Counter proliferation Centre, we have undertaken the most extensive reorganization of the Federal government since 1947.

On August 23, 2005, Hurricane Katrina formed as a tropical storm off the coast of the Bahamas. Over the next seven days, the tropical storm grew into a catastrophic hurricane that made landfall first in Florida and then along the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, leaving a trail of heart breaking devastation and human suffering. Katrina wreaked staggering physical destruction along its path, flooded the historic city of New Orleans, ultimately killed over 1,300 people, and became the most destructive natural disaster in American history. Viewing homeland security as part of the national security apparatus does not imply eliminating state and local public safety involvement, at least for the less-than-catastrophic concerns. Hurricane Katrina fed the narrative that the attention to terrorism since September 11, 2001 undermined the U.S. emergency preparedness system. But after Hurricane Katrina some elected officials argued that the military should play a much more aggressive role in homeland security, particularly in response activities. Future attacks inside the United States or other catastrophes like Katrina may give more impetus to efforts to formally integrate homeland security and defence.

Shortfalls in the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina highlight that our current homeland security architecture—to include policies, authorities, plans, doctrine, operational concepts, and resources at the Federal, State, local, private sector, and community levels—must be strengthened and transformed. The current homeland security environment—with the continuing threat of mass casualty terrorism and the constant risk of natural disasters—now demands that the Federal government actively prepare and encourage the Nation as a whole to plan, equip, train, and cooperate for all types of future emergencies, including the most catastrophic.