What is Homeland Security?

Homeland security is a term representing security efforts to prevent terrorist activities in United States. The idea of homeland security was strengthened after the vicious attack of 9/11. The department of homeland security was formed in November 2002 on the basis of homeland security act. Before this the homeland security activities were spread between 400 federal agencies.

Exactly after 11 days from 9/11 attack president Bush announced that a homeland security office will be created within the White House. Tom Ridge, the Pennsylvania Governor was the first director of the department. The office’s aim was to over look and co ordinate the strategies to protect the nation from terrorist attacks. After one month a bill was introduced to establish department of home land security, the DHS. The intention was unite the agencies responsible for infrastructure protection in cabinet level.

The president decided to establish two boards with in the White House. The Office of Home land Security will work on national strategies and other related activities to ensure safety of the country, whereas the Homeland Security Council which includes cabinet members will provide proper advice to the president on homeland security matters. A huge fund was allocated to the DHS in the first budget after 9/11. The fund was allocated to improve Bioterrorism prevention efforts, the technology used, to provide support for the responder etc. All these showed the increasing focus on homeland security.

By June 2006 the president announced the formation of a permanent Cabinet level department of Homeland Security. There were four departments in the system. Each division was designed handle a particular set of problems. They are the;

· Border and Transportation Security – There duty was to prevent the flow of explosive to the country by illegal methods.

· Emergency Preparedness and Response – There mission was to provide support to both state and local authorities in case of emergencies

· Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Countermeasures – This division consist of a bunch of scientist who are employed to develop technologies to detect nuclear, chemical, and biological arms.

· Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection – This department is designated to make full picture of the threats roaming around the nation by collecting information from different agencies.

Recently a Cyber security division was also added to the Homeland Security Department. This department deals with all the internet related matters that compromises the national security. This division involves sorted out IT professionals.

The department of homeland security operational by Jan 24 2003 after the bill was passed in the cabinet. An organization chart was posted in the DHS official website on the same day. The chart shows the position of each member in DHS. The organization chart was modified 9 times since then. The last modification occurred on September 2008.

The secretary occupies the top most position and other officials come under him. The department employs more than 200,000 peoples. The purpose of the Homeland Security System is fulfilled to an extent until now. There were no serious terrorist attack records after the establishment of DHS.