U.S. Department Of Homeland Security Services example essay topic

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security services all Americans by providing an ample amount of security for each individual person living within the country. But with an over growing demand for such services, mostly due to the incident occurring on September 11th, 2001, the amount of money and the efforts put forth for such protection seems to be relatively scarce. As for the political side, both Democrats and Republicans are voicing their opinions on what should and should not happen within the department. On June 24, 2002 a bill was introduced to the House of Representatives with the idea of creating a fully-functional cabinet-level department, called the Department of Homeland Security. The new department would provide protection for America's borders against terrorists and their attacks, as well as being dedicated to protecting the lives of the people inside these borders.

With the help of the Homeland Security Act that was passed by the senate with a 90-9 vote, on November 19th 2002, the newly introduced bill was soon passed as well. According to the president, the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security is to prevent terrorist attacks within the U.S. by stopping America's vulnerability to terrorism with help from federal, state, and local government resources which aid in recovery. In order to achieve all goals put forth, the White House believes that the Department of Homeland Security should be divided into four divisions, and that it is. 1) Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection. This would consist of a new intelligence clearing house with the assistance of the FBI, CIA, Secret Service as well as other federal agencies servicing help towards America's infrastructures, particularly food and water systems, as well as other significant areas; 2) Countermeasures for Chemical (Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) attacks. Which would help guide the federal government in taking action against terrorists involving weapons of mass destruction; 3) Border and Transportation Security.

Which provides protection relating to the borders, assuming the responsibility for the Immigration and Naturalization service, consisting of border patrol and animal and plant health inspection as well as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the U.S. Coast Guard and Custom services; and 4) Emergency Preparedness and Response, helping to decrease the damage and speed up the recovery from attacks, by combining the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Nuclear Emergency Search, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Health and Human Services. Since the Department of Homeland Security is a part of the Executive Branch, both the President and Congressional Committees have full authority of what goes on. Unless a specialized home land Security committee is formed, all committees involved would have some say in authority due to the broad range of responsibilities needed to successfully and sufficiently run the department. Other leaders of the department consist of Secretary, Tom Ridge, as well as a deputy, who has similar duties as the secretary but acts more as an assistance. There are also four Under Secretaries for each of the four listed divisions, as well as an Under Secretary of Management. Although there are even more top positions, neither of them have the same responsibility or authority as the others do.

Since the tragedy of 9/11, the Bush Administration believed that further steps were need to adequately protect the United States. In President George W. Bush, submission for his Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 budget to Congress, he said that "our first priority must be the security of our homeland". To this, he proposed spending $37.7 billion on programs for homeland security ultimately doubling the FY'02 request of $19.5 billion showing a 29.3% increase over the combined FY'02 request and Emergency Response Fund ($9.8 billion). For next year, Tom Ridge finds out that the budget for fiscal year 2004 isn't nearly large enough to let him achieve the goals that congress has set.

The budget has jumped 7.5% for FY 2004 to 36.2 billion. Producing a major challenge and as Tom Ridge says, "in the end that makes all the difference" The following charts show the breakout of Homeland Security funding by activity and by executive department, for the year 2003 Some of the biggest topics discussed relating to Home Land Security, are the controversies that seem to conflict with the running of the department. Because of this, the public is voicing their opinions. Some say that the whole idea is to costly in the first place ($38 billion the first year as an estimate) causing America to waste money and time, when already are government has huge deficits problems. Adding more would only destabilize the world economy leaving massive debts for future generations.