DHS was formed in 2002 by taking 22 existing security-related agencies out of their departments and grouping them under new central management. Seemed like a good idea at the time; failure of coordination between such agencies was seen, rightly or wrongly, as one of the things that allowed 9/11 to happen. But I’ve been reading (RW) chatter on other boards to the effect that DHS has been a bureaucratic boondoggle from day one, that the agencies still have no clear lines of communication between them and nobody knows what they’re doing. Do we really need it? Of course we need the customs and immigration services, FEMA, the Coast Guard, etc., but what is the point of DHS itself?
Criticism from the left sees DHS as a threat to Americans’ civil liberties and privacy – is there anything to that? “Homeland Security” is an ominous phrase, to be sure, it sounds like the kind of secret-police/political-police “Interior Ministry” they have in police states, but, after all, the department’s creation was only a reorganization, of agencies already existing; it did not expand government’s reach or functions or powers, and did not much expand the federal payroll AFAIK. And the FBI (the one federal agency that actually has sometimes functioned as a domestic political police force) and CIA and NSA are not parts of it.
As a student of bureaucracy, I thought from Day 1 that creating the DHS made no sense and was a kneejerk response to the events of 9/11. Creating an overarching agency does nothing to ensure that the underlying departments will communicate effectively. I’ve seen nothing since to convince me that my original assessment was incorrect. My opposition is purely organizational rather than political – I don’t think that the DHS itself has threatened civil liberties separate from the rest of the federal government.
DHS seems to cover three separate entities related to customs and immigration of which only INS existed prior to the creation of DHS. The Coast Guard kind of fits into the same general theme. But then there is FEMA, why, I fail to understand. And the Secret Service, well, I thought it was doing OK under treasury, which fits its original charter better.
So, if you put FEMA back into, what, HHS? and the Secret Service back into Treasury where it belongs, your are left with border management (immigration and customs), which work fine in Justice, Commerce and HHS, as applicable. That leaves the Coast Guard, which probably ought to be under Justice.
Since it does not serve to coördinate intelligence between the FBI, CIA and NSA, there just seems to be no logic to it. Tom Ridge got to make his inane little dangerainbow, to make it look like he was doing something, but no one uses that anymore and I am not convinced that anyone ever took it seriously in the first place.
Ultimately, DHS ought to be redistributed to agencies where its functions make sense, because its general charter is simply not meaningful or worthwhile.
Edit: oh, I forgot TSA. That would fit just fine in Justice, I guess (Transportation would not really make sense).
The DHS would have made sense (in principle if not in practice) if 9/11 had been the opening shot of more or less continual terrorist attacks on the scale of a low-grade war. It was imho, based on the assumption that essentially there was no such thing as peace anymore, and that remaining permanently mobilized against threats foreign and domestic was the new global reality. Which simply didn’t happen. 9/11 remains the high water mark for domestic terrorism, and security measures more appropriate for Tel Aviv turned out to mostly be unnecessary.
DHS should have only be tasked with coordinating the various security agencies. It was madness to think that taking the individual security departments out of really big bureaucracies and putting them all in one gigantic bureaucracy would be an improvement.
Well sure. Have there been any more 9/11 style attacks since DHS was formed? No? Well then, it’s been worth it. It works at least as good as my anti-tiger devices that I have all around my houses perimeter. Since I put those suckers up there hasn’t been a single tiger attack on my grounds! And those suckers love coffee, let me tell you.
TSA and Coasties go with customs, as they are both vaguely related to going in and out of the country with or without cargo and belongings. Doesn’t strike me as a justice thing. Treasury?
The DHS seems really, really important to Democrats, since they’ve been literally screeching about it for weeks.
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That issue is all about defunding the agencies of the DHS, which I hope we can agree all are important.
If DHS had never been created, the issue would be defunding the Justice Department, which included the Immigration and Naturalization Service before the reorganization.
I don’t know why they can’t pass a bill relating only to the ICE (which handles deportations) and leaving the rest of the DHS agencies alone. Why does it have to involve the whole department?
I’ll defend DHS. I think it was a great success. The Bush administration centralized a lot of attention and support by having one new big agency with this one image. It meant “September 11” but sounded like it was a separate talking point.
As far as saving American lives, though, it’s hard to see how there’s any relevance at all. Terrorism wouldn’t work at all if we didn’t keep making such a fuss over it. But if we want to fuss about something, why not unprotected swimming pools? Those claim about 5000 American lives per year, the majority of them upper middle class children.
