Homeland Security Reorganization -- Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

[december]

I'm not against Bush's plan to create a new cabinet position, heading up a Department of Homeland Security, and to move various governmental units and responsibillities into the new department. OTOH it's not a panacea.

I don't see that it will make much difference. No doubt, analysts who have not been on the ball will give greater attention and focus to security, but that would have occurred regardess.

I expect Congress to do a good job in creating the new structure, although there's always the risk that they'll get it all balled up.

What do you think?

[Collounsbury]

Useless bureaucratic layering. The obvious problem appears to be diffusion of resp. and power, lack of analytical capacity to deal with the intelligence already collected, lack of humint in the proper areas and lack of cooperation.

Frankly I think making Homeland Sec. (and I despise the name, fucking Iowan corny) department is rather adding to the layers.

[nahtanoj]

I see this purely as an inefficient answer to decades of imcompetence on the parts of the various agencies such as the CIA, FNI, NSA, etc. How hard is it really to set up a dialogue between the agencies? Can't the CIA tell INS, NSA, and FBI that someone is entering the country that might warrant observing? Do we really need a 196,000 person department to perform this task?

nahtanoj

[David Simmons]

Originally posted by december
I'm not against Bush's plan to create a new cabinet position, heading up a Department of Homeland Security, and to move various governmental units and responsibillities into the new department. OTOH it's not a panacea.

I don't see that it will make much difference. No doubt, analysts who have not been on the ball will give greater attention and focus to security, but that would have occurred regardess.

I expect Congress to do a good job in creating the new structure, although there's always the risk that they'll get it all balled up.

What do you think?

We'll have to wait and see. The creation of a new department, using pieces from old departments, usually involves a big transient disturbance with a loooong settling time. During the that time not much gets done except straigtening out the bureaucracy.

The Department of Defense is over 50 years old and some of the waves from its original creation are still present. I.e., the different services are not really one big, happy and efficient organization below the DOD organizational level.

[John Bredin]

My main concern is whether the agencies are going to be moved wholesale to the Homeland Security department or merely answer to the HS Secretary while remaining in their present department. The latter is an obvious "two masters" problem, but the former concerns me even more for some agencies:

Coast Guard. A multipurpose agency if there ever was one. Regulates vessels and their operators (equivalent of DMV), constructs and maintains navigational aids (equivalent of the FAA or a highway department), performs rescues (equivalent of fire deparment), and enforces the law at sea (general law and order, like the police, though it has focuses like drug interdiction and illegal immigration by sea).

Customs. The primary purpose of this agency is revenue collection, with anti-smuggling a close and related second.

FEMA. Many of the disasters FEMA deals with are natural and therefore totally unrelated to terrorism. Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etcetera.

I fear that placing agencies like these **wholly** under the HS Department would cause them to focus on anti-terrorism to the exclusion, or at least the detriment, of their other vital tasks. I have the same concern about the (much-discussed in the media) "refocusing" of the FBI as an anti-terror agency. Bank robberies, wire frauds, kidnappings, and the whole panoply of interstate crimes aren't going to stop just because of September 11. Should the FBI investigate terrorist threats? Of bloody course! Should they make it their *primary* task? IMHO, no!

[Dinsdale]

We'll have to wait and see.

Could easily result in unnecessary duplication - which would seem inconsistent with W's proclaimed desire for a leaner gov't.

OTOH - I work for a huge fed agency (the biggest, excluding armed forces) that about 5 years ago was split off from its cabinet-level department. We have a clearly defined function other than surfing the internet during work hours ;) Yet in our prior situation we found ourselves competing for resources against our teammates who were doing "more glamorous" work.

Independence has allowed us to focus solely on our responsibilities. Which could be a good thing if Homeland Security responsibilities/goals/interests are clearly divisible from, say, Customs, Coast Guard, or INS interests in general. If not, I am not sure how it will work. I'm assuming, for example, that INS does some things that are not strictly related to Security. Will those be relegated to secondary status under the new regime?

Moreover, if my experience is any predictor, simply renaming organizations is in itself no guarantee of improved communication.

Finally, at the risk of sounding alarmist, I am a little wary that the reorganization of so much authority under the mantle of "security" may further contribute to increased police powers and decreased privacy. If government is set up such that it views everything as a "security" issue requiring police powers, it will respond in certain predetermined ways. For example, I seem to recall studies suggesting that police department personnel conduct themselves differently if their mission is described as "public service," as opposed to "law enforcement."

[Dinsdale]

Uh - what John said, better and one minute quicker than me.

[xenophon41]

Here's a link (http://www.whitehouse.gov/deptofhomeland/book.pdf) to the White House "book" on the proposed department. (This is a .pdf file.) It's also available in html on the White House web page (http://www.whitehouse.gov/).

As far as I can tell, the administration's main justification for this reorg is to rectify problems with communication of information and with clear lines of responsibility. I remain unsure why such rectification requires a new government department, rather than a few alterations of existing agency missions and an expansion of authority for the already existing Office of Homeland Security*. Can anyone shed light on this?




*Gotta agree with C on the rotten name. Not only is it corny, it's just too suggestive of an uber-nationalistic mentality.

[elucidator]

Where to begin? Some much wholesale cupidity! Lets start with:

The Enemy "Thousands of trained killers" boiling furiously with rage and hatred, flinging themselves against our nation. So where are they? What are they waiting for? No clue. But I can tell you this: if this lull persists, Our Leader will be taking credit.

"Of course, for security reasons, we cannot reveal how many dastardly plots have been foiled. But its a bunch of 'em! We can’t tell you about it. But we’re doing a hell of a job, yessireebob! Trust us.”

Is the timing suspicious? Well, rather. But soft! Turns out that they’ve been working on this plan for a Long Time. They didn’t just cobble it together in order to be seen as Doing Something, this is the fruit of conscientious labor, not just some slap-dash improv to take off the heat.

Uh-huh. Amazing, isn’t it? Damn near everything else “leaked”, all kinds of embarrassing and ugly facts leak out, but not this. No hint, no clue. A organizational study that, if done correctly, needs the input of hundreds of people from all over the gummint. Out of all these turf protecting back stabbing beureaucrats not one leak? Extraordinary, no?

Unless, of course, they’re lying. Spinning. Whatever.

And what resources are to be re-assigned? Is a Coast Guard cutter captain to be reassigned to an anti-smallpox lab? An FBI agent off inspecting school cafeteria grade hamburger? Nonsense. Most everybody will continue to perform the same tasks they have training and experience to perform. Only those personnel who perform investigative functions will be refocused, and most of them will be in the FBI-CIA-ATF cabal. They will report to the same people they reported to before, and those people will brief Tom Ridge. Wow. Big whoppity whoop. Bet those terrists are shaking in their sandals now.

Further doth Our Leader assure us that all of this can be accomplished without the dreadful horror of Expanding Bureaucracy! Oh happy day! Our darkest fears are abated! No expanded bureaucracy, just an extra layer of organization! A grateful nation blubbers it's gratitude!

Enough. If you’ve read this far, I have already belabored your attention span. Go in peace, and vote Republican no more.

[december]

Originally posted by elucidator Enough. If you’ve read this far, I have already belabored your attention span. Go in peace, and vote Republican no more. I tend to agree with your POV, elucidator. However, Bush's plan has bi-partisan support. It is close to what leading Democrats in Congress have been promoting.

[xenophon41]

True that the proposal has bi-partisan support. It looks like a very positive, very broad action that no politician would want to be seen obstructing. To blame only Republicans for the smoke & mirrors aspect is a bit naive. As far as the timing of the announcement, I'm thinking the D-Day anniversary has more to do with it than the current finger-pointing.

[elucidator]

How could it not have bi-partisan support? Who the hell is gonna be caught in public voting against the Security for Our Widows and Orphans Against the Dastardly Terrorists and God Bless Our Heroes Act? Might as well bake a batch of cookies and send them to John Walker Lindh!

Further: it is a compromise masquerading as an initiative.

The Demos wanted a cabinet position as that gives Congress advise and consent powers, plus investigative authority. BushCo wanted to keep pretending that it was entirely an Executive branch matter, and Congress can butt out. He had no chance of getting away with this, so this way he knuckles under while appearing to Lead.

It also neatly permits Pubbies to share in the collective Congressional turf-build, without making them publicy confront Our Leader. Their ever-waning hopes rest upon those frail shoulders, they have no option but to march in lockstep with him, while performing standing ovations in reponse to his Churchillian orations.

Old wine, new bottle. Same clothes, same Emperor.

[Semp]

I'll join the chorus of those panning the term "homeland." It smacks of Fatherland, or something out of Tolkien, take your pick. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the word "domestic" in this sense.

Beyond the superficial, though, it makes you wonder why actual domestic defense/intelligence wasn't centrally coordinated before this. I know we never expected to be attacked on American soil, but you'd think someone would think it might come in handy some day. And I do think it's a good idea to have the head of it all be an actual administration official, because Tom Ridge (what has he done other than the Rainbow Of Doom?) is being shielded from testifying before Congress by the White House, whereas an actual Secretary can not refuse such requests. I don't care if it's going to be a super-secret meeting like the current hearings are, at least have someone communicating with our elected officials (and yes, I do aim that comment at the Prez).

As it stands now the proposal seems a little in need of fine tuning - or a lot, I'm not claiming any expertise in how governmental bureaucracy works. But how involved will the FBI, CIA and NSA be in the new department? And what's to stop some middle manager from stopping good info from going any higher than him/her when they think it's bunk? Isn't that one of the defenses of the administration about the pre-9/11 intel?

I hope it works, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[Biggirl]

As I understand it (and I'm sure the Teeming Debators will correct me if I'm wrong) the CIA and FBI will not be under the Homeland umbrella. What good is that?

The whole "not putting the peices together" thing was mostly those two agencies not sharing vital information.

[Ottto]

Raw intelligence regarding homeland security will be fed in from the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc, and will be analysed by the new department. Sort of a intel 'clearing-house', which certain intelligence community persons have been suggesting for years.

[Collounsbury]

Ah yes, and you believe in the tooth fairy also, yes?

May I be so bold as to note, if only for the record, that the CIA was supposed to have been such a clearing house, you know Central Intelligence...

Ah well, if one's Prez says so it must bloody well be so.

[David Simmons]

Originally posted by Collounsbury
Ah yes, and you believe in the tooth fairy also, yes?

May I be so bold as to note, if only for the record, that the CIA was supposed to have been such a clearing house, you know Central Intelligence...

Ah well, if one's Prez says so it must bloody well be so.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Would it also be unkind to note that if the FBI, CIA, Army Intelligence, Naval Intelligence, et al really were all that keen to coordinate intelligence, there was no barrier to their doing so.

[Biggirl]

From http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011008.html

coordinate and prioritize the requirements for foreign intelligence relating to terrorism within the United States of executive departments and agencies responsible for homeland security, and provide these requirements and priorities to the Director of Central Intelligence and other agencies responsible for collection of foreign intelligence;


Which means, if my reading comprehension is up to par, that Homeland Security will report to the CIA and not the other way around.

From CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/06/08/bush.homeland.security/index.html)
Some lawmakers, however, criticized various aspects of the Bush proposal. Some opposed lumping immigration services under a department whose mission is national security: Others questioned why the FBI and the CIA were left relatively unaffected by the planned overhaul

[Boyo Jim]

Originally posted by Biggirl
As I understand it (and I'm sure the Teeming Debators will correct me if I'm wrong) the CIA and FBI will not be under the Homeland umbrella. What good is that?

The whole "not putting the peices together" thing was mostly those two agencies not sharing vital information.

That's my understanding as well. IMHO, any reorg that doesn't involve either the CIA or the FBI is just a dog and pony show.

Also, this demand for more agents and investigatory powers is ridiculuous. We apparently had all kinds of clues, AND agents who wanted to follow them up, but couldn't get permission to use the powers and resources already available. Decision making in the FBI has to be decentralized -- Hoover set a mold in place, that the whole massive agency would be tasked by a small group of Washington insiders (who were always looking for headlines), that has yet to be broken.

[pldennison]

Originally posted by David Simmons


You took the words right out of my mouth.

Would it also be unkind to note that if the FBI, CIA, Army Intelligence, Naval Intelligence, et al really were all that keen to coordinate intelligence, there was no barrier to their doing so.

Yep--it's largely inter-service and interagency rivalry that keeps them from doing so. It's all about the turf.

[urban1a]

I've been thinking about this since the announcement was made. As usual the clear thinking of the teemings have crystallzied my thoughts and made me realize that it isn't much more than a new set of clothes for the emporer.

Thanks everyone.

Bob

[London_Calling]

Almost as a side-note, It's curious to me that the world wide web was originally conceived by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (the European Particle Physics Laboratory) to address this very co-ordination issue - one part of CERN or an outside Agency doing work, having done work, having expertise on particular issues, etc – by linking sources and information together between different Agencies, often in different languages. I guess we all kinda know how that concept works now.

So, from a purely informational perspective, the problem of coordination doesn't seem that great.

The problem, IMHO, remain the turf issue but also the quality of information coming in – electronics are all fine an' dandy but the US can't even trace OBL's money trail after the event. Huge amounts of low-level quality information resulting in sorting the chaff from, well, the chaff.

Human Intelligence has to be the key. Not having a single covert agent on the ground in central Asia for over a decade might be indicative of the kinds of institutional failure worth looking at within the US Intelligence community.

In relation to the OP, I tend to think of this as not so much rearranging deck chairs but as buffing them up for public viewing.

[David Simmons]

Originally posted by urban1z
I've been thinking about this since the announcement was made. As usual the clear thinking of the teemings have crystallzied my thoughts and made me realize that it isn't much more than a new set of clothes for the emporer.

Thanks everyone.

Bob

Or, as we used to say about periodic reorganizations where I worked, "Same monkeys, different trees."

[PhiloVance]

Frankly I think making Homeland Sec. (and I despise the name, fucking Iowan corny) department is rather adding to the layers.

And.....I spose Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection are :cool:

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

The proof is in the pudding, if it works who cares what the name is.

[Collounsbury]

Originally posted by PhiloVance


And.....I spose [b]Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection are :cool:
[quote]

Yes, it is hard to think of an improved name. Whereas Homeland is corny.

[quote]
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:


And?


The proof is in the pudding, if it works who cares what the name is.

It strikes me that a review of the evidence on such bureacratic added layers to magically achieve greater coordination is that we can assume this will fail. Waste of resources for the chicken littles to feel better.

[Sam Stone]

You can't get rid of bureaucracy by creating more bureaucracy.

And just wait for the turf wars to start. By the time this is done, this new bureaucracy is going to be anything but the clean sheet of paper it was intended to be. It's going to be a patchwork mess of compromises and congressional juggling, and in the end is going to wind up bloating the size of government, restricting freedoms even further, and accomplishing nothing.

So this behemoth of an agency is going to incorporate the coast guard, huh? How long before the 'war on drugs' winds up in the hands of the 'Homeland Security' department? And with all the sweeping powers they'll have to conduct surveillance and other operations, there goes another chink in the public's civil liberties.

Does anyone remember the reason why the FBI and the CIA and the NSA were made separate agencies in the first place? The FBI was given jurisdiction over domestic matters, and the CIA was supposed to be purely concerned with external matters. The reason for this was because external security requires investigative powers and intelligence assets that have no place in the arsenal of a domestic agency. It was a check against the CIA and NSA's powerful bugging and intelligence gathering tools being used against American citizens.

Well, now you're not only wrapping them together, but including a host of other peripheral agencies like Treasury, the Coast Guard, the INS, and the NHS. What an incredibly bad idea.

Why is it that in a country that prides itself in the strength it gains from a free population, every time there is a crisis the only proposed solution is a huge, centrally planned bureaucracy?

Mark my words on this one - the department of homeland security is going to be a mess. It's yet another wrong step by the Bush administration to add to the list of wrong steps they've been making in the last three months.

What really bugs me, though, is that trying to protect the security of a free country with an agency like this is doomed to failure anyway. The United States is FULL of soft targets. You can't protect them all. And if you spent billions of dollars hardening 99.9% of those targets, the terrorists will simply adjust their efforts towards the last .1% that you missed. Are you going to protect every truck, every ship, every dam, every factory, every power plant, every power supply, and every shopping mall? Please. If the terrorists release five canisters of Sarin gas in strategic locations in the Mall of America during Christmas, or in Grand Central Station, or a large office complex, they'll kill thousands. You can't protect them all. Look at Israel - it has security we would never accept in North America. Every public place has armed guards. And it's FAR smaller than the U.S. And terrorist attacks still occur.

Why are politicians so afraid of involving the public? The only way to defend a free society is to engage the public in their own defense. Every factory owner, plant foreman, and building manager should have programs available to him to teach him how to protect his assets. People should get tax breaks for implementing defensive measures.

And since you can't stop all attacks, efforts should be made to limit the damage. Vaccine availability and evacuation plans are necessary. Critical facilities should be decentralized, or backup plans put into place.

Corporations should step up efforts to plan for disaster recovery. ISO 9001 specifies things like disaster recovery plans for critical infrastructure, and it works quite well. The government should encourage more of this among all businesses. Our economy is far more vulnerable than it needs to be.

Now, this may be more controversial, but one area where a 'citizen militia' makes sense is in homeland defense. To that end, I would consider a national concealed-carry permit, tied to a national program for training in handguns and a licensing/registration system for people who wish to take part.

Aircraft should have defensive equipment for use by passengers who are helping to restrain violent passengers. light chain mail gloves and vests are an excellent defense against someone with a knife, yet they are totally useless as an offensive weapon. Likewise, handcuffs or zip-tie thumb cuffs should be available. Store a set in every half-dozen overhead lockers. Offer 'airplane proctor' certificates for citizens, that gets them trained in submission, first aid, simple identification of typical terrorist behaviours and weapons, etc. Make it tax deductible.

You can make yourself safer, and more free. And you don't have to spend 40 billion dollars a year and create a monstrous new bureaucracy to do it.

[Collounsbury]

Originally posted by Sam Stone
You can't get rid of bureaucracy by creating more bureaucracy.


Nor do you make existing bureaucracy more efficient that way.

I agree.


And just wait for the turf wars to start. By the time this is done, this new bureaucracy is going to be anything but the clean sheet of paper it was intended to be. It's going to be a patchwork mess of compromises and congressional juggling, and in the end is going to wind up bloating the size of government, restricting freedoms even further, and accomplishing nothing.


Bingo.


So this behemoth of an agency is going to incorporate the coast guard, huh? How long before the 'war on drugs' winds up in the hands of the 'Homeland Security' department? And with all the sweeping powers they'll have to conduct surveillance and other operations, there goes another chink in the public's civil liberties.


Bingo.


Does anyone remember the reason why the FBI and the CIA and the NSA were made separate agencies in the first place? The FBI was given jurisdiction over domestic matters, and the CIA was supposed to be purely concerned with external matters. The reason for this was because external security requires investigative powers and intelligence assets that have no place in the arsenal of a domestic agency. It was a check against the CIA and NSA's powerful bugging and intelligence gathering tools being used against American citizens.


Bingo, and added note, CIA was supposed to be the intel clearing house....


Well, now you're not only wrapping them together, but including a host of other peripheral agencies like Treasury, the Coast Guard, the INS, and the NHS. What an incredibly bad idea.


Sam and I rarely agree, but boy do we agree here.


Why is it that in a country that prides itself in the strength it gains from a free population, every time there is a crisis the only proposed solution is a huge, centrally planned bureaucracy?


Well, here we have to part: the issue is information and free flow. There does need to be a central clearing house for the intelligence, and it does have to have security. It strikes me increased effic of existing organizations rather than more layers is the only rational approach.


Mark my words on this one - the department of homeland security is going to be a mess. It's yet another wrong step by the Bush administration to add to the list of wrong steps they've been making in the last three months.



They do seem to be off balance and flailing.


Why are politicians so afraid of involving the public? The only way to defend a free society is to engage the public in their own defense. Every factory owner, plant foreman, and building manager should have programs available to him to teach him how to protect his assets. People should get tax breaks for implementing defensive measures.


I am a bit puzzled by this.

First, I think that this is precisely the sort of situation where 'costs' are externalized as much as possible. Privatized terror defence is likely to end up more patchworky and inefficient than something else. The incentives for free riding given an otherwise highly competitive economic environment are just to plainly evident.


Corporations should step up efforts to plan for disaster recovery. ISO 9001 specifies things like disaster recovery plans for critical infrastructure, and it works quite well. The government should encourage more of this among all businesses. Our economy is far more vulnerable than it needs to be.


How many facilities and firms go for ISO 9001 cert? It's expensive.Not a cost that is easily borne and individual replication of a general security program -- indeed one targetted and properly linked with skilled intelligence -- is not likely to be efficient, nor is it in any way obvious to me how this might be a real response to the threat. Some plant manager looking out for "a-rabs"?


Now, this may be more controversial, but one area where a 'citizen militia' makes sense is in homeland defense. To that end, I would consider a national concealed-carry permit, tied to a national program for training in handguns and a licensing/registration system for people who wish to take part.


Oh great, lots of folks like ottto and so forth with not a clue with concealed weapons looking for them ayrabs and mooslims to shoot.


Aircraft should have defensive equipment for use by passengers who are helping to restrain violent passengers. light chain mail gloves and vests are an excellent defense against someone with a knife, yet they are totally useless as an offensive weapon. Likewise, handcuffs or zip-tie thumb cuffs should be available. Store a set in every half-dozen overhead lockers. Offer 'airplane proctor' certificates for citizens, that gets them trained in submission, first aid, simple identification of typical terrorist behaviours and weapons, etc. Make it tax deductible.


This is absurd. Really very absurd bordering on the ludicrous. The obvious note is that there is no way to predict nor control without a proper security system who is going to use those wonderful devices, it may very well be the terrorist(s).

It is all well and fine to abstract away from such problems and just imagine that only the good private citizens will have access, but the world ain't that easy nor pretty.

[Sam Stone]

It's not absurd - it's a simple, effective technique that costs almost nothing, could be implemented overnight, and would improve our safety. And kevlar gloves are the ultimate 'asymmetric' tool - they are of tremendous use in defense against a knife, but absolutely useless as an offensive weapon.

An 'airplane proctor' certificate wouldn't just be a self-defense program - that's of limited use anyway. It would include things like identifying suspicous behaviour, how to alert the flight crew without alerting the terrorists, etc. It would also include training in first aid and emergency egress, which would be useful in every aircraft incident.

I have a hard time seeing a downside to such a program. Make it available, fund it with tax credits for people who take it, or don't fund it at all - let people pay for it themselves if they want to take it. Lots of people will.

Israel engages the citizenry in ways that we haven't. Stores hire private security firms that are specially trained in terrorist interdiction, or they defend themselves. A lot of citizens are armed, and a LOT of terrorist attacks have been prevented or limited in scope when a citizen shot the terrorist. You just don't hear about that a lot in the western news.

As for ISO certification - I'm not suggesting that all companies be ISO certified. Having been involved in that process, I know how expensive it is, and how useless most of it would be for smaller businesses. I was just using the Disaster Recovery Planning aspect of it as an example of the kinds of steps businesses can take to protect themselves.

How about the government offering a tax credit to small businesses for owners to take a certified course in disaster recovery planning? If a small ISP can come up with a DRP that allows them to have their servers back up and running in an alternate location in the event of a disaster, then the country will be that much stronger. These are the kinds of things that should be encouraged.

The citizenry can do a lot. Even simple things like making sure you have a week's supply of fresh water at home and driving around on the top half of a tank of gas instead of the bottom half can make it much easier to control a disaster. Why isn't the government even mentioning these things?

I guess my main point is that we are being treated like children. We station soldiers in airports without bullets in their guns, because some paternalistic bureaucrat thinks it will help us sleep better at night. Civilian programs for security aren't offered, because the government is afraid of telling us what we need to hear. Instead, there will be a huge bureaucracy, massive intrusions into our private lives, and in the end it won't do much anyway. Bah.

[Sam Stone]

I would just like to add that two major terrorist attacks have been averted so far - and BOTH of them were averted by citizens who saw what was going on and took action. We should help that effort.

Police forces rarely stop crimes - they catch and punish people after the crime is committed. You can't put police in enough places in the United States that would result in even a extremely tiny percentages of critical installations can be protected. Enlisting the people gives you 300 million pair of eyes and ears to draw from. Huge bang for the buck.

[Measure for Measure]

Well, I agree that devising an appropriate response the relentlessly falling cost of mayhem production should involve public discussion as well as input from the broader civil society.

Collounsbury has noted that the existing plan does little to enhance the ability of the government to analyze security data. True. Some commentators recommend (therefore) that intelligence be centralized at the CIA. I'm not quite sure how that would work, however. I am inclined to establish a (new) agency with broad investigatory powers but circumscribed prosecutory powers. But I haven't thought it through. Disturbingly, I haven't read of a lot of discussion on this topic.

But there are other aspects to homeland security. Container inspection, for example, needs to be overhauled and it may make sense to unify border controls under 1 agency instead of (I think) 3.

I've posted this before, but taking a leaf from the Defense Department in this instance might be a good idea. When they perceive an emerging threat, they appoint a "red team" and "blue team". The red team plans attack while the blue team works on defense. They then get together and run a simulation. That exercise could usefully be applied to vulnerabilities in our trade, financial and medical infrastructure.

[Violet]

Most of the comments here are very throughtful. To me, it seems that major crimes were investigated by "task forces," so there has always been a blurring of agencies. For example, any time money is involved, IRS agents are usually brought in to work with the bureau, etc. Task forces were both proactive and retroactive. For example, I think all GS-1811 (criminal investigator) positions from all agencies assisted in security for Olympics games over the years.

I think people with the most insight are those who have spent time in the fed. bureaucratic system. I tend to agree that it's more of a "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." Someone on NPRI, I think, said this new cabinet idea was created just to change the headlines. The headlines were about agencies blaming each other for dropping the ball before 9-11.

[David, God of Frogs]

In response to the thread title (I like the metaphor BTW, I'll have to use that sometime): I can't believe nobody's mentioned this (http://www.theonion.com/onion3821/life_jackets_issued.html).

[Violet]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned this.
:D I love it!

[blowero]

Originally posted by elucidator
How could it not have bi-partisan support? Who the hell is gonna be caught in public voting against the Security for Our Widows and Orphans Against the Dastardly Terrorists and God Bless Our Heroes Act?

Exactly. Might as well call it the Department of Not Killing Puppies.

[Sam Stone]

flowbark: the reason you haven't heard about it is because the media does a lousy job of presenting all sides of an issue on those rare occasions when both parties in government agree with each other. The media has so developed into an adversarial megaphone for the two main political parties that when they agree the media stops investigating.

A good example: The 'war' on drugs. Both parties agree that it's necessary, and the media stops questioning it.

I don't like the near unanimity I'm hearing from the media on how necessary and important this giant department is. All I can see are new problems with this agency, but I haven't heard a single criticism in the mainstream media. They're not doing their jobs.

[Eva Luna]

Originally posted by London_Calling

The problem, IMHO, remain the turf issue but also the quality of information coming in – electronics are all fine an' dandy but the US can't even trace OBL's money trail after the event. Huge amounts of low-level quality information resulting in sorting the chaff from, well, the chaff.

Human Intelligence has to be the key. Not having a single covert agent on the ground in central Asia for over a decade might be indicative of the kinds of institutional failure worth looking at within the US Intelligence community.



Hell yeah! I just don't grok how it's possible for the CIA to employ analysts who can't read or understand the languages of the areas for which they are responsible for gathering intelligence. How the heck are they supposed to know what's going on? It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it!

[ElvisL1ves]

This from Thomas Oliphant (http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/160/oped/Bush_security_flip_flop+.shtml) illustrates Bush's politically-motivated flipflop on the reorganization, for anyone who wants to enter the "creation of wasteful government bureaucracies" rhetorical quicksand.
On May 22, in between subpoenas and other hardball maneuvers over the administration's Enron secrets, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee approved legislation on a 9-7 vote to create a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. Every Democrat on the committee voted for the measure. Every Republican - in consultation with the White House - voted against it.

Within a fortnight, the president was making the same basic proposal he had spent almost nine months fighting.

As always where a president's hide is concerned, the only thing that matters in a White House is saving it, no matter how many congressional allies are hung out to dry by a flip-flop, no matter how many conservative principles are transferred to back burners. Somewhere, Bill Clinton is chuckling.

... the prospect Bush faced was not only a continuing, broadening investigation into all the dots his people didn't connect last summer, but legislative momentum on how to fix things over his ideological opposition...

[David Simmons]

Originally posted by Sam Stone
flowbark: the reason you haven't heard about it is because the media does a lousy job of presenting all sides of an issue on those rare occasions when both parties in government agree with each other. The media has so developed into an adversarial megaphone for the two main political parties that when they agree the media stops investigating.

A good example: The 'war' on drugs. Both parties agree that it's necessary, and the media stops questioning it.

I don't like the near unanimity I'm hearing from the media on how necessary and important this giant department is. All I can see are new problems with this agency, but I haven't heard a single criticism in the mainstream media. They're not doing their jobs.

The Sunday 9 June Los Angeles Times had a long story on the difficulties inherent in creating such a Cabinet department. Unfortunately you have to register in order to view it on line and somebody beat me to the use of my own name. So I will eschew registering since I don't want to bother to learn another name just to look at the on line version of a paper I read every day.

It is there if you want to look it up.