The New Face of American Security: The Department of Homeland Security Act of 2002

     The United States presidential election of 2000 denoted a new decade of American culture, economics, and politics. The administration under George W. Bush dramatically reshaped America and the international community. His controversial reforms fundamentally changed the way United States citizens perceived the world, and also the way the world perceived the United States. Bush’s eight-year reign was marked by sorrow and joy, tragedy and victory. Despite his departure from the Oval Office with only a 22 percent approval rating, his impact has changed the course of American history and his legacies will thrive until the United States itself falls from power.   The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the most prominent of Bush’s legacies, is a bastion of neoconservative influence, a representation of the population’s greatest fears, and a new face of American security.  I will follow the Homeland Security Act of 2002 from its roots in the tragedy of the September 11th terrorist attacks, to its progression into law, to its implementation on American soil.  Whether the Department of Homeland Security is ultimately a manifestation or a travesty of American values, the course of world history unquestionably has been altered.
     On September 11th, 2001, nineteen suicide terrorists hijacked four commercial jets and flew them directly into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  The attack claimed the lives of 2,796 men, women and children, and left a permanent scar in American history.  Following September 11th, 2001, citizens of the United States felt the rawest of emotions—despair, hate, and fear.  That night, our relatively new president addressed his public with a famous and fiery speech that caused his approval ratings to skyrocket to 90%.  “Today, our nation saw evil…America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world,” George W. Bush stated.  That night Bush also made a clear promise to his people: “Our first priority is to … take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks.”  The American public was fearful, the congress was passionate, and George W. Bush was determined. He was determined to reform America into a country that was radically different from the days of pre-9/11 bureaucracy and protocol.
     Why? How did September 11th happen? Many experts, including Gideon Rose, ex-member of the National Security Council, point their fingers at the American emphasis on privacy, openness, and a free-flow of goods and people. They believe these priorities led us to neglect security and homeland defense.  Bush adopted these beliefs, as well as lashing out at the bureaucracy of American intelligence and counterterrorism. Prior to the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, homeland security was managed among over forty different agencies and 2,000 separate congressional appropriations accounts.   Bush blamed this bureaucratic inefficiency as one of the primary causes for our failure to protect our own citizens. Whether or not his accusations were warranted, he was on to something. September 11th was not the first breach of American security, and obviously reformation was direly necessary.  
     Our failure to prevent 9/11 was not an isolated incident; February 26th, 1993, was a day that could have seen destruction and death that rivaled the more recent attacks. Razmi Yousef, an Islamic extremist, drove a car bomb into the World Trade Center with the intent to kill everyone inside. He later stated that he had aimed to end 250,000 American lives.  Thus, a terrorist nearly murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the American government failed to have the intelligence or the means to stop him.  In the end, the 250,000 lives were saved merely by chance, a malfunction of the bomb, not by our own hands. We were clearly vulnerable, but unlike Bush, the Clinton Administration refused to significantly compromise the ideal of American liberty for the sake of safety.
     Since Razmi Yousef’s failed bombing and September 11th, America’s homeland has become only more dangerous. Anti-American sentiment is growing worldwide, even amongst our own population; the FBI estimates that 10 percent of mosques within United States preach a violent form of Jihad.  Bush recognized that we were living in a drastically different world than the one he grew up in, and called for equally drastic measures to combat America’s new enemies. The most ambitious and effective of these measures was the Department of Homeland Security.
     The actual concept of the Department of Homeland Security can be traced back to February 2001, when the U.S. Commission on National Security (the Hart-Rudman Commission) urged government to create a National Homeland Security Agency to replace the dozens of inefficient agencies that were not unified.   In March of the same year, Mac Thornberry, a Republican representative from Texas, listened to the commission’s suggestion and proposed the National Homeland Security Agency Act.  The bill was ultimately unsuccessful; congress had not yet witnessed tragedy, and failed to recognize our nation’s weaknesses. The idea would not be revived until Osama Bin Laden exposed our greatest vulnerabilities and fears on the fatal day of September 11th, 2001.
   On September 22nd, 2001, Bush once again addressed the public, this time with an agenda. Among other promises, he revealed his plan to establish the Office of Homeland Security (OHS), an entity led by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, which would oversee and coordinate a plan to safeguard America from terrorism.  Following the speech he made on September 22nd, Bush aggressively pursued his goal to prevent future terrorist attacks with a series of executive orders. On October 8th, 2001, Bush issued Executive Order 13668, officially establishing the OHS and the Homeland Security Council (HSC), comprised of Bush’s cabinet and designed to advise him on matters of homeland security.  On March 21st, Bush issued Executive Order 13260, founding the President’s Homeland Security Advisory Council (PHSAC), a council representing academia, the private sector, NGOs, and state governments.  Bush’s emphasis and dedication to the protection of the American people made a mark on congress, even crossing partisan lines.
     On October 11th, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Senator Arlen Spector (R-PA) introduced S. 1534, a bill almost identical to Mac Thornberry’s.  Although the bill ultimately met the same fate as Thornberry’s, the United States government was on the brink of serious and dramatic reformation of homeland security. Despite the bill’s failure to pass in congress, Bush was unfazed and relentlessly continued to campaign for security reform. In February 2002, he released the FY2003 Budget, the first post-9/11 budget, which allocated 37.7 billion dollars to the support of first responders, bioterrorism prevention, border control, and security related technologies.
Finally on June 6th, 2002, Bush proposed to the public the establishment of the modern incarnation of the Department of Homeland Security—a permanent, Cabinet-level department unifying the agencies integral to safeguarding American soil.  There were four primary divisions in Bush’s proposal—border and transportation security; emergency preparedness and response; radiological, biological, chemical, and nuclear countermeasures; and information analysis and infrastructure protection.  The White House proceeded to release an official and detailed document outlining, among other things, the organization of the department, congressional committees responsible for its activities, and the requested appropriations. On June 18th, President Bush formally proposed his bill to congress, officially entitled the Department of Homeland Security Act of 2002, and almost identical to the document he released fourteen days earlier.
     As the legislation passed through congress, Bush issued Executive Order 13267 creating the Transition Planning Office (TPO) to prepare for the imminent establishment of the Department of Homeland Security.  On June 24th, 2002, Representative Dick Armey (R-TX) introduced it to the House of Representatives as H.R. 2005. It passed two days later with a vote of 295 to 132.  On November 19th, 2002, the senate ratified the bill with amendments by a vote of 90 to 9.  Six days later, President Bush signed the Department of Homeland Security Act of 2002 into law.  Ever since, America has been a very different nation.
     The sacrifices our country has made in the name of security are controversial, blurring the line between the ethical and perverse, between justice and depravity. The Department of Homeland Security aims to protect our nation, but at what cost? In Bush’s urgency to prevent terrorism, essential American liberties, like habeas corpus, have been suspended. In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security, in collaboration with the FBI and CIA, detained a suspected terrorist, Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar, and eventually deported him to Syria. He was brutally tortured for days before he was determined to be innocent and released.  How many of these travesties must we suffer before the direction homeland security has taken is deemed unethical and illegal?
     Even though America under the Department of Homeland Security has forsaken some of its founding values, unraveling centuries of moral evolution, there is justification. The same post-9/11 paranoia that led to the torture of an innocent man has thwarted over nineteen terrorist attacks.  Since the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, thousands of lives have been saved, sometimes due to the violent, unregulated, and efficient actions conducted under the new America. With the blessing of the DHS, the CIA water-boarded known terrorist operative Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times, and uncovered multiple conspiracies to devastate the world’s infrastructure, economy, and morale. Targets included Heathrow Airport, Canary Wharf, Big Ben, Israel, the Panama Canal, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the Empire State Building.  The new face of American defense, as terrifying as it may be, undoubtedly has lived up to its promises to keep the United States and the world safer.
     The fifty billion dollar Department of Homeland Security was born of tragedy, was quickly implemented, and continues to be dangerously effective. Even after Bush departed from the Oval Office and the Obama Administration assumed power, Bush’s legacy continues to thrive. On October 30th, 2009, Obama, despite all of his criticisms of Bush’s policies, authorized another forty-four billion dollars to be appropriated for the DHS.  The Department of Homeland Security, although established during a neoconservative administration, is now integral to American society. Both Republicans and Democrats recognize the importance of organized and efficient homeland security, and neither party is willing to openly criticize the DHS despite its faults. The DHS has demonstrated clearly why we need it, and no future politician will question its existence. In the coming years it is likely to grow more prominent and powerful. We are reaching a point where the Department of Homeland Security is independently shaping our society and culture into a very different America, where civil rights and basic morality are being sacrificed for safety from terrorism.