Nine months after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush proposed creation of a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security, which was formed to unite essential agencies to work more closely together. The affected agencies consisted of the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol, the Customs Service, immigration officials, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Employees of the Department of Homeland Security would be charged with completing four primary tasks :
To control our borders and prevent terrorists and explosives from entering our country
To work with state and local authorities to respond quickly and effectively to emergencies
To bring together our best scientists to develop technologies that detect biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and to discover the drugs and treatments to best protect our citizens
To review intelligence and law enforcement information from all agencies of government, and produce a single daily picture of threats against our homeland, with analysts responsible for imagining the worst and planning to counter it
On November 25, 2002, President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002 into law. The act restructures and strengthens the executive branch of the federal government to better meet the threat to our homeland posed by terrorism. In establishing a new Department of Homeland Security, the act created a federal department whose primary mission will be to help prevent, protect against, and respond to acts of terrorism on our soil. The creation of this new cabinet-level department was a historic event in American history, and it will have long- lasting repercussions on the global community. For security professionals, it adds yet another dimension to the complexity of securing infrastructure from malcontents.