The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a Cabinet department of the United States federal government with the primary responsibilities of protecting the territory of the U.S. from terrorist attacks and responding to natural disasters.
Whereas the Department of Defense is charged with military actions abroad, the Department of Homeland Security works in the civilian sphere to protect the United States within, at, and outside its borders. Its stated goal is to prepare for, prevent, and respond to domestic emergencies, particularly terrorism. On March 1, 2003, DHS absorbed the Immigration and Naturalization Service and assumed its duties. In doing so, it divided the enforcement and services functions into two separate and new agencies: Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services. Additionally, the border enforcement functions of the INS, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service were consolidated into a new agency under DHS: U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The Federal Protective Service falls under Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
With more than 200,000 employees, DHS is the third largest Cabinet department, after the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Homeland security policy is coordinated at the White House by the Homeland Security Council. Other agencies with significant homeland security responsibilities include the Departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, and Energy.
The creation of DHS constituted the biggest government reorganization in American history, and the most substantial reorganization of federal agencies since the National Security Act of 1947, which placed the different military departments under a secretary of defense and created the National Security Council and Central Intelligence Agency. DHS also constitutes the most diverse merger of federal functions and responsibilities, incorporating 22 government agencies into a single organization.
Pages and Listings are in reverse chronological order:
News Bizarre tale of TB traveler reveals border security gaps
6-1-2007
USA Today OpEd
Since 9/11, the US government has spent billions of dollars and devoted its best minds to building a system to prevent a terrorist or a person infected with pandemic flu from entering the country. Now, it turns out, all it takes to thwart the nation*
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News Homeland Security worker disregarded TB warning
5-31-2007
AP
A globe-trotting Atlanta lawyer with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was allowed back into the U.S. by a border inspector who disregarded a computer warning to stop him and don protective gear, officials said.
News Sci-fi writers join war on terror
5-30-2007
USA Today
Looking to prevent the next terrorist attack, the Homeland Security Department is tapping into the wild imaginations of a group of self-described "deviant" thinkers: science-fiction writers. [Apparently some writers should spend more time r
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News Is terrorism the primary focus of Homeland Security?
05-30-2007
Infowars
A report issued Sunday by independent research group The Transactional Records Action Clearinghouse(TRAC) found that in the last three years there have only been 12 charges of terrorism out of 814,073 cases.
News Whats the risk of a national ID card?
05-19-2007
Papers Please
We are people, entitled to define (and redefine) ourselves. We are not, and we should not be, identified solely by which pigeon-hole(s) a government decides to put us in.
News The Identity Projects Comments Against Real ID
05-18-2007
Papers Please
Real ID requires states to act as Federal agents in the unwise policy of turning our transportation systems into a dragnet for law enforcement. Americans must increasingly prove they are not on secret government lists in order to travel or generally
News Bangor, Maine conducting illegal joint task force roadblocks
05-16-2007
Bangor Daily News
Anything out of the ordinary went to a secondary checkpoint where MDEA agents and K-9 units from the Rockport Police Department, U.S. Customs and Maine State Police were waiting. Drivers were asked to produce a valid license and registration. If anyt
News Security, Washington-Style
05-15-2007
by Ron Paul for LewRockwell.com
Congress voted this past week to authorize nearly $40 billion for the Homeland Security Department, but the result will likely continue to be more bureaucracy and less security for Americans.
News BP Agent Gonzales caught on tape stealing pot
05-13-2007
KVOA News 4
While the suspect and the officer were away, Border Patrol agent Michael Carlos Gonzalez arrived on the scene. Gonzalez was supposed to guard the suspect's truck, loaded with marijuana. Instead, he helped himself to a 20 pound bundle. And the wh
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News Facial recognition next trick in terrorist tool bag?
05-10-2007
USA Today
Melissa Ngo of the Electronic Privacy Information Center says the technology endangers privacy by enabling ordinary security cameras to find out the names of people being observed. "Why are you being tracked if you're not doing anything wron
Feature Article UPDATED: SWEET HOMELAND ALABAMA Dave Gallagher
Appears the Alabama Dept of Homeland Security (ALDHS) doesn't like the attention as they have pulled the web pages regarding the Security TAP Course. Luckily, the internet never forgets. Here are links to the Google cached version of the pages.
News Sweet Homeland Alabama
05-10-2007
chrisbrunner.com
Support the 2nd Amendment? Skeptical of Big Government? Does the slogan "Freedom Good Government Bad" appeal to you? Well ... The state of Alabama has labeled you a terrorist!
News Local business leaders decry permanent checkpoints for I-19
05-09-2007
tucsoncitizen.com
"We just think that should happen at the border," she said. "We feel like they're moving the border further north and giving up on the area south of the checkpoint like we're a no man's land." Cullen, who has a Ph.D. i
News Submit comments against Real ID (National ID) this week!
05-03-2007
Papers Please
The draft regulations to implement the REAL ID Act are open for comment until 5 p.m. EST on May 8, 2007. Please act! Submit comments against this fundamentally flawed national identification scheme!
News Another Border Patrol Agent charged with murder
04-29-2007
officer.com
A U.S. Border Patrol agent who fatally shot a Mexican illegal entrant in January has been charged with murder by the Cochise County Attorney who said Monday that the shooting was not justified.
News Another Enemy of the People??
04-09-2007
Balkinization
On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by John Hopkins University Press
News My problem with HSPD-12
04-04-2007
Wunderland
I recently learned about Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 (HSPD-12), and Goddard Space Flight Center's planned implementation of this Directive. All employees (contractors as well as civil servants) will be required to submit to an ex
News Inspectors lists computers with atomic secrets as missing
04-01-2007
NY Times
The office in charge of protecting American technical secrets about nuclear weapons from foreign spies is missing 20 desktop computers, at least 14 of which have been used for classified informatoin, the Energy Dept inspector general reported on Frid
News NSA program draws Congress' ire
03-28-2007
Baltimore Sun
Congress publicly registered its impatience with the managment of the NSA yesterday as lawmakers criticized the agency's new multibillion-dollar effort to ID, track and analyze emerging threats in cyberspace. Dubbed "Turbulence,"
News FBI Provided Inaccurate Data for Surveillance Warrants
3-26-2007
Washington Post
FBI agents repeatedly provided inaccurate information to win secret court approval of surveillance warrants in terrorism and espionage cases, prompting officials to tighten controls on the way the bureau uses that powerful anti-terrorism tool, accord
News TSA Security Theater becoming lucrative business...
03-26-2007
USA Today
Airport checkpoints create lines, pat-downs and occasional headaches for travelers. But now they're going to make something new. Money. TSA will allow companies to sell ads inside plastic bins whose sole purpose has been to move passengers' s
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News Another reason not to fly - forced passenger quarantines...
03-24-2007
Reuters
Passengers onboard a flight landing at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport on Friday were quarantined for several hours because a fellow passenger claimed he had smallpox. The threat was proven false after the man was taken to Carolinas Medical
News "Enhanced" Drivers Licenses For Border Crossing
03-24-2007
Wolvesblog
Thus national ID gets imposed by the very people who once opposed it. Because it's a "convenient" solution to a problem that never existed until the fedgov decided to begin locking down U.S. borders.
News Bioterror & Security Theater
03-11-2007
Kevin Freking - Associated Press
More than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government cannot show how the $5 billion given to public health departments has better prepared the country for a bioterrorism attack or flu pandemic.
News Fatherland Security offers details on Real ID
03-07-2007
News.com
Hundreds of millions of Americans will have until 2013 to be outfitted with new digital ID cards, the Bush administration said on Thursday in a long-awaited announcement that reveals details of how the new identification plan will work.
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News White House Rehearses for a Domestic Attack
2-25-2007
Newsweek
The White House is staging a high-level exercise to test responses to the prospect of a massive domestic terrorist attack involving improvised explosive devices involving simultaneous terror attacks by sleeper cells in 5 cities across the country:
News Border agent gets 5 years in prison
02-17-2007
DailyBulletin.com
A former border inspector was sentenced Thursday to five years in federal prison for guiding hundreds of illegal immigrants through his checkpoint booth in exchange for taking at least $70,000 from a smuggling ring (do you feel more secure yet?).
News Identity Project unwelcome in Washington
02-13-2007
PapersPlease.org
Travel expert, author, and Identity Project consultant Edward Hasbrouck was expelled from the World Research Group, Inc. Aviation Security Summit conference to which he had been specifically invited, as an author, and for which he had registered,
News Homeland Security director who shot deliverymen has history of assault & use of excessive force
02-06-2007
Godlike Productions
In January 2004, Washington was charged with a misdemeanor on suspicion of attacking a property manager at a meeting he attended as a board member of a homeowners association in Accokeek. Washington was suspended with pay pending an investigation, an
News Dept of Homeland Security Made Only 12 Claims of Terrorism in Last 3 Years
6-5-2007
Despite repeated claims by high officials of the Bush Administration that fighting terrorism has been the central mission of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) since it began operating, the data show that in the last three years a claim of ter
Headlines: Dept of Homeland Security Made Only 12 Claims of Terrorism in Last 3 Years -- Homeland Security director who shot deliverymen has history of assault & use of excessive force -- Identity Project unwelcome in Washington -- Border agent gets 5 years in prison -- White House Rehearses for a Domestic Attack -- Fatherland Security offers details on Real ID -- Bioterror & Security Theater -- "Enhanced" Drivers Licenses For Border Crossing -- Another reason not to fly - forced passenger quarantines... -- TSA Security Theater becoming lucrative business... -- FBI Provided Inaccurate Data for Surveillance Warrants -- NSA program draws Congress' ire -- Inspectors lists computers with atomic secrets as missing -- My problem with HSPD-12 -- Another Enemy of the People?? -- Another Border Patrol Agent charged with murder -- Submit comments against Real ID (National ID) this week! -- Local business leaders decry permanent checkpoints for I-19 -- Sweet Homeland Alabama -- UPDATED: SWEET HOMELAND ALABAMA -- Facial recognition next trick in terrorist tool bag? -- BP Agent Gonzales caught on tape stealing pot -- Security, Washington-Style -- Bangor, Maine conducting illegal joint task force roadblocks -- The Identity Projects Comments Against Real ID -- Whats the risk of a national ID card? -- Is terrorism the primary focus of Homeland Security? -- Sci-fi writers join war on terror -- Homeland Security worker disregarded TB warning -- Bizarre tale of TB traveler reveals border security gaps --
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