Essay on "Understanding Homeland Security"

Essay 10 pages (3326 words) Sources: 7 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Understanding the Core Challenges to American Homeland Security

Since the attacks on September 11th, which felled the World Trade

Towers and left a gaping hole in the edifice of the Pentagon, it has become

almost clich? to observe that this assault effectively altered American

life forever. Whether this is an accurate sentiment or merely a self-

fulfilling prophecy, it is evident that this allegedly profound re-

calibration of our lives is a product of the dichotomy created by the newly

emergent threat to national security and the set of legislative responses

thereto. With regard to this latter category though, there remains still a

great deal of debate as to whether the former category is being truly

addressed or whether these new laws are in fact serving to effect changes

that are separate from the conditions of our post-9/11 law-enforcement

culture. This is a perspective which permeates Jonathan R. White's 2003

text on the subject, entitled Defending the Homeland. The White text is a

study in the reconfiguration of government that offers many of the

technical details of a monumental shift in government orientation. This

would begin with the attacks in 2001.

By the time the smoke had begun to clear at Ground Zero, Congress had

enacted the United States Patriot Act. A bulky piece of legislation which

was fast-tracked through both houses of our government without even an

utterance of debate, its uncontested passage was highly contingent upon the

circumstances of extreme political sensitivity and legislative uncertainty

that accompanied the first month following the attacks. Its primary

advocate, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, succeeded in championing the

bill through Congress with little more than an hour's testimony which did

not include submission to open questioning. (Lewis, 1)

In an atmosphere that vociferously discouraged any indications of

dissent, which Democratic congressmen especially viewed as the pathway to

public crucifixion in such emotionally charged times, the Patriot Act came

into force on October 24th, 2001. The Patriot Act was set forth with the

proposed mission to "deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States

and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and

for other purposes." (107th Congress, 1) Entered into the American psyche

as a weapon against those forces which would threaten national security,

the legislation has since been under intense scrutiny for the tenuous

nature of its passage and for its invocation of the apparent contrast

between the drive to strengthen security and the Constitutional centrality

of individual freedoms.

It is especially illuminating to note the contrast in indicators for

the security lapses which allowed September 11th to occur and the security

directives which were thereafter adopted. There is a trail of active

deviation from preventative security measures in the face of increasing

intelligence indicators that there was a rising threat of legitimate

terrorist aggression, as demonstrated by Ashcroft's unwavering pre-9/11

stance of counter-terrorism fund-cutting.

"Justice Department documents released by American Progress reveal

that in August 2001, the FBI specifically requested additional resources to

bolster counterterrorism resources. In response, Ashcroft actually cut

counterterrorism funding in critical areas including equipment grants,

border control, and the National Domestic Preparedness Office. . . [N]ew

analysis reveals the 2002 counterintelligence budget proposed by Ashcroft

cut counterintelligence spending by more than $476 million - a 23 percent

decline from 2001 funding levels." (DTP, 1) At this point, directly in the

midst of a shrieking rancor amongst intelligence officials demanding

attention to an inevitably approaching al Qaeda masterminded attack of

theretofore unprecedented magnitude, the Justice Department executed

dutifully a Bush Administration security policy of de-emphasis. While the

administration would later assert that it responded to a din about possible

hijacking threats by alerting 56 airlines and advising through the FAA that

greater screening measures be adopted, handling of the incoming domestic

intelligence was disinterested at best and suspiciously repressive at

worst.

But surfacing evidence makes a strong case that actions taken

directly by the administration were in fact contrary to the counsel of

every sector of the intelligence world. In addition to stonewalling their

own intelligence advisors about the swelling level of covert terrorist

activity in the summer of 2001, the Bush Administration ignored indications

from abroad that the threat of attack was imminent. "Egyptian President

Hosni Mubarak said that in the weeks before the attacks, the Egyptian

intelligence service warned U.S. officials of a possible attack by the bin

Laden terrorist network, according to The New York Times. The White House,

however, responded that the United States had no warnings at all." (Cover

Story, 4) While such a response is juxtaposed sharply by the above outlined

indications which were presented to the Bush Administration, this plea of

ignorance is perfectly consistent with the Bush Administration's pre-9/11

security policy. In spite of all the warning signs, there is readily

presentable documentation that the Bush Administration did not wish to make

counter-terrorism a priority. Attorney General John Ashcroft's May 2001

'budget goals memo' outlined his department's top seven priorities.

Counterterrorism did not appear anywhere on the list. After 9/11, Ashcroft

released a revised strategic goals memo in November 2001 that inserted a

new priority at the top of the list - 'Protect America Against the Threat

of Terrorism.' (DTP, 1)

While there had been no evident connection between the gradual

progress in American civil liberties that had occurred over the previous

decade of economic prosperity and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the

adoption of the Patriot Act as a means to the prevent of future

vulnerabilities turned inward.

The Patriot Act awarded the United States government with a broad

range of newfound powers which have been said, by advocates of its content,

to diminish the restraints to law-enforcement that have made it so

difficult for agencies to prevent the occurrence of domestic terrorism. Of

particular note to many private citizens of the United States has been the

gradual breakdown of a set of protections to individual privacy. With

government surveillance of domestic, subversive activities taking center-

stage in the race to assign blame for the security shortcomings that

allowed these attacks to occur, the Patriot Act is especially concerned

with expanding the rights of intelligence agencies, local law enforcement

and the federal government to acquire information from and about American

citizens. With new laws deconstructing the structural processes already in

place to regulate the acquisition of rights for the use of telephone

wiretaps, the willful seizure of personal information and the investigation

of individuals without probable cause, the United States government

responded to the attacks on its people by directing its legislation at

those who had already been victimized by terrorism. Even beyond weakening

protections to individual privacy, the legislation was crafted to

incorporate a public sector forum as yet unaccounted for, extending "to the

Internet the already broad authority to monitor transactional information

about communications with very little justification." (CDT, 2)

In this set of responses to the terrorist attacks, the federal

government began a process wherein Constitutional liberties had become

legislatively synonymous with a weak national security strategy. Thus,

advocates of the Patriot Act, a bill so named for indisputable reasons of

image-shaping, have used its conditions to blur the line between terrorist

investigation and criminal investigation and even lawful political dissent.

In this last application, there is serious cause for alarm amongst

defendants of the Constitution. The first amendment to the Bill of Rights

is directly assailed by the legislation which, among its heretofore

unthinkable entitlements, has given the government the right to review the

medical records, emails, library records and other such distinctly private

affects as they pertained to 'suspected' individuals. (ACLU1, 1)

Essentially bypassing the 'probable cause' clause which keeps criminal

investigation under the control of due process, the Patriot Act is visibly

adaptable to all manner of civil activity which could not have

traditionally been considered in any way associated with terrorism prior to

September 11th. The result is a right to free speech, political resistance

and peaceable assembly that is dramatically blunted. Such is to note that

the Patriot Act is today most commonly implemented in investigations

concerning immigration, drug trafficking and, most nefariously, political

dissent. In the face of controversial War on Terror initiatives such as

the conflict in Iraq, the protest and resistance movements have been

stunted by laws and permit-denials that are appropriated by the Patriot

Act's emphasis on security.

This likewise accounts for the pointed withdrawal from the

Constitution's fourth amendment. Again, another locus at which probable

cause has been removed from consideration, the hazy definition of activity

which can be considered associated with terrorism can now be levied to

forego the investigative processes of criminal law enforcement. In direct

contrast with the spirit of the fourth amendment, "the Patriot Act

broadened the government's power to search an individual's home without

telling her until weeks or months later, and to do so in any criminal

case." (CDT, 2)

Among its many shortcomings is here one of the most troubling. With

the Patriot Act, the United States government has shown itself to be either

unwilling… READ MORE

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