President's Remarks view President Releases National Strategy for Homeland Security

The President has released the National Strategy for Homeland Security. Attached is the Executive Summary.

This document is the first National Strategy for Homeland Security. The purpose of the Strategy is to mobilize and organize our Nation to secure the U.S. homeland from terrorist attacks. This is an exceedingly complex mission that requires coordinated and focused effort from our entire society -- the federal government, state and local governments, the private sector, and the American people.

People and organizations all across the United States have taken many steps to improve our security since the September 11 attacks, but a great deal of work remains. The National Strategy for Homeland Security will help to prepare our Nation for the work ahead in several ways. It provides direction to the federal government departments and agencies that have a role in homeland security. It suggests steps that state and local governments, private companies and organizations, and individual Americans can take to improve our security and offers incentives for them to do so. It recommends certain actions to the Congress. In this way, the Strategy provides a framework for the contributions that we all can make to secure our homeland.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security is the beginning of what will be a long struggle to protect our Nation from terrorism. It establishes a foundation upon which to organize our efforts and provides initial guidance to prioritize the work ahead. The Strategy will be adjusted and amended over time. We must be prepared to adapt as our enemies in the war on terrorism alter their means of attack.

Unless we act to prevent it, a new wave of terrorism, potentially involving the world’s most destructive weapons, looms in America’s future. It is a challenge as formidable as any ever faced by our Nation. But we are not daunted. We possess the determination and the resources to defeat our enemies and secure our homeland against the threats they pose.

One fact dominates all homeland security threat assessments: terrorists are strategic actors. They choose their targets deliberately based on the weaknesses they observe in our defenses and our preparedness. We must defend ourselves against a wide range of means and methods of attack. Our enemies are working to obtain chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons for the purpose of wreaking unprecedented damage on America. Terrorists continue to employ conventional means of attack, while at the same time gaining expertise in less traditional means, such as cyber attacks. Our society presents an almost infinite array of potential targets that can be attacked through a variety of methods.

Our enemies seek to remain invisible, lurking in the shadows. We are actively engaged in uncovering them. Al-Qaeda remains America’s most immediate and serious threat despite our success in disrupting its network in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Other international terrorist organizations, as well as domestic terrorist groups, possess the will and capability to attack the United States.

In response to the homeland security challenge facing us, the President has proposed, and the Congress is presently considering, the most extensive reorganization of the federal government in the past fifty years. The establishment of a new Department of Homeland Security would ensure greater accountability over critical homeland security missions and unity of purpose among the agencies responsible for them.2

American democracy is rooted in the precepts of federalism -- a system of government in which our state governments share power with federal institutions. Our structure of overlapping federal, state, and local governance -- our country has more than 87,000 different jurisdictions -- provides unique opportunity and challenges for our homeland security efforts. The opportunity comes from the expertise and commitment of local agencies and organizations involved in homeland security. The challenge is to develop interconnected and complementary systems that are reinforcing rather than duplicative and that ensure essential requirements are met. A national strategy requires a national effort.

State and local governments have critical roles to play in homeland security. Indeed, the closest relationship the average citizen has with government is at the local level. State and local levels of government have primary responsibility for funding, preparing, and operating the emergency services that would respond in the event of a terrorist attack. Local units are the first to respond, and the last to leave the scene. All disasters are ultimately local events.

The private sector -- the Nation’s principal provider of goods and services and owner of 85 percent of our infrastructure -- is a key homeland security partner. It has a wealth of information that is important to the task of protecting the United States from terrorism. Its creative genius will develop the information systems, vaccines, detection devices, and other technologies and innovations that will secure our homeland.

An informed and proactive citizenry is an invaluable asset for our country in times of war and peace. Volunteers enhance community coordination and action, whether at the national or local level. This coordination will prove critical as we work to build the communication and delivery systems indispensable to our national effort to detect, prevent, and, if need be, respond to terrorist attack.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security aligns and focuses homeland security functions into six critical mission areas: intelligence and warning, border and transportation security, domestic counterterrorism, protecting critical infrastructure, defending against catastrophic terrorism, and emergency preparedness and response. The first three mission areas focus primarily on preventing terrorist attacks; the next two on reducing our Nation’s vulnerabilities; and the final one on minimizing the damage and recovering from attacks that do occur. The Strategy provides a framework to align the resources of the federal budget directly to the task of securing the homeland.

Intelligence and Warning. Terrorism depends on surprise. With it, a terrorist attack has the potential to do massive damage to an unwitting and unprepared target. Without it, the terrorists stand a good chance of being preempted by authorities, and even if they are not, the damage that results from their attacks is likely to be less severe. The United States will take every necessary action to avoid being surprised by another terrorist attack. We must have an intelligence and warning system that can detect terrorist activity before it manifests itself in an attack so that proper preemptive, preventive, and protective action can be taken.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies five major initiatives in this area:

· Build new capabilities through the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Division of the proposed Department of Homeland Security;

Border and Transportation Security. America historically has relied heavily on two vast oceans and two friendly neighbors for border security, and on the private sector for most forms of domestic transportation security. The increasing mobility and destructive potential of modern terrorism has required the United States to rethink and renovate fundamentally its systems for border and transportation security. Indeed, we must now begin to conceive of border security and transportation security as fully integrated requirements because our domestic transportation systems are inextricably intertwined with the global transport infrastructure. Virtually every community in America is connected to the global transportation network by the seaports, airports, highways, pipelines, railroads, and waterways that move people and goods into, within, and out of the Nation. We must therefore promote the efficient and reliable flow of people, goods, and services across borders, while preventing terrorists from using transportation conveyances or systems to deliver implements of destruction.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies six major initiatives in this area:

The President proposed to Congress that the principal border and transportation security agencies -- the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the Transportation Security Agency-- be transferred to the new Department of Homeland Security. This organizational reform will greatly assist in the implementation of all the above initiatives.

Domestic Counterterrorism. The attacks of September 11 and the catastrophic loss of life and property that resulted have redefined the mission of federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities. While law enforcement agencies will continue to investigate and prosecute criminal activity, they should now assign priority to preventing and interdicting terrorist activity within the United States. The Nation’s state and local law enforcement officers will be critical in this effort. Our Nation will use all legal means -- both traditional and nontraditional -- to identify, halt, and, where appropriate, prosecute terrorists in the United States. We will pursue not only the individuals directly involved in terrorist activity but also their sources of support: the people and organizations that knowingly fund the terrorists and those that provide them with logistical assistance.

Effectively reorienting law enforcement organizations to focus on counterterrorism objectives requires decisive action in a number of areas. The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies six major initiatives in this area:

Protecting Critical Infrastructure and Key Assets. Our society and modern way of life are dependent on networks of infrastructure -- both physical networks such as our energy and transportation systems and virtual networks such as the Internet. If terrorists attack one or more pieces of our critical infrastructure, they may disrupt entire systems and cause significant damage to the Nation. We must therefore improve protection of the individual pieces and interconnecting systems that make up our critical infrastructure. Protecting America’s critical infrastructure and key assets will not only make us more secure from terrorist attack, but will also reduce our vulnerability to natural disasters, organized crime, and computer hackers.

America’s critical infrastructure encompasses a large number of sectors. The U.S. government will seek to deny terrorists the opportunity to inflict lasting harm to our Nation by protecting the assets, systems, and functions vital to our national security, governance, public health and safety, economy, and national morale.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies eight major initiatives in this area:

· Unify America’s infrastructure protection effort in the Department of Homeland Security;

· Build and maintain a complete and accurate assessment of America’s critical infrastructure and key assets;

· Enable effective partnership with state and local governments and the private sector;

· Harness the best analytic and modeling tools to develop effective protective solutions;

· Guard America’s critical infrastructure and key assets against "inside" threats; and

· Partner with the international community to protect our transnational infrastructure.

Defending against Catastrophic Threats. The expertise, technology, and material needed to build the most deadly weapons known to mankind -- including chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons -- are spreading inexorably. If our enemies acquire these weapons, they are likely to try to use them. The consequences of such an attack could be far more devastating than those we suffered on September 11 -- a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear terrorist attack in the United States could cause large numbers of casualties, mass psychological disruption, contamination and significant economic damage, and could overwhelm local medical capabilities.

Currently, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear detection capabilities are modest and response capabilities are dispersed throughout the country at every level of government. While current arrangements have proven adequate for a variety of natural disasters and even the September 11 attacks, the threat of terrorist attacks using chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons requires new approaches, a focused strategy, and a new organization.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies six major initiatives in this area:

· Prevent terrorist use of nuclear weapons through better sensors and procedures;

Emergency Preparedness and Response. We must prepare to minimize the damage and recover from any future terrorist attacks that may occur despite our best efforts at prevention. An effective response to a major terrorist incident -- as well as a natural disaster -- depends on being prepared. Therefore, we need a comprehensive national system to bring together and coordinate all necessary response assets quickly and effectively. We must plan, equip, train, and exercise many different response units to mobilize without warning for any emergency.

Many pieces of this national emergency response system are already in place. America’s first line of defense in the aftermath of any terrorist attack is its first responder community -- police officers, firefighters, emergency medical providers, public works personnel, and emergency management officials. Nearly three million state and local first responders regularly put their lives on the line to save the lives of others and make our country safer.

Yet multiple plans currently govern the federal government’s support of first responders during an incident of national significance. These plans and the government’s overarching policy for counterterrorism are based on an artificial and unnecessary distinction between "crisis management" and "consequence management." Under the President’s proposal, the Department of Homeland Security will consolidate federal response plans and build a national system for incident management in cooperation with state and local government. Our federal, state, and local governments would ensure that all response personnel and organizations are properly equipped, trained, and exercised to respond to all terrorist threats and attacks in the United States. Our emergency preparedness and response efforts would also engage the private sector and the American people.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies twelve major initiatives in this area:

· Integrate separate federal response plans into a single all-discipline incident management plan;

The National Strategy for Homeland Security also describes four foundations -- unique American strengths that cut across all of the mission areas, across all levels of government, and across all sectors of our society. These foundations -- law, science and technology, information sharing and systems, and international cooperation -- provide a useful framework for evaluating our homeland security investments across the federal government.

Law. Throughout our Nation’s history, we have used laws to promote and safeguard our security and our liberty. The law will both provide mechanisms for the government to act and will define the appropriate limits of action.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security outlines legislative actions that would help enable our country to fight the war on terrorism more effectively. New federal laws should not preempt state law unnecessarily or overly federalize the war on terrorism. We should guard scrupulously against incursions on our freedoms.

· Streamline information sharing among intelligence and law enforcement agencies;

· Provide substantial management flexibility for the Department of Homeland Security.

Science and Technology. The Nation’s advantage in science and technology is a key to securing the homeland. New technologies for analysis, information sharing, detection of attacks, and countering chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons will help prevent and minimize the damage from future terrorist attacks. Just as science has helped us defeat past enemies overseas, so too will it help us defeat the efforts of terrorists to attack our homeland and disrupt our way of life.

The federal government is launching a systematic national effort to harness science and technology in support of homeland security. We will build a national research and development enterprise for homeland security sufficient to mitigate the risk posed by modern terrorism. The federal government will consolidate most federally funded homeland security research and development under the Department of Homeland Security to ensure strategic direction and avoid duplicative efforts. We will create and implement a long-term research and development plan that includes investment in revolutionary capabilities with high payoff potential. The federal government will also seek to harness the energy and ingenuity of the private sector to develop and produce the devices and systems needed for homeland security.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies eleven major initiatives in this area:

· Solicit independent and private analysis for science and technology research;

Information Sharing and Systems. Information systems contribute to every aspect of homeland security. Although American information technology is the most advanced in the world, our country’s information systems have not adequately supported the homeland security mission. Databases used for federal law enforcement, immigration, intelligence, public health surveillance, and emergency management have not been connected in ways that allow us to comprehend where information gaps or redundancies exist. In addition, there are deficiencies in the communications systems used by states and municipalities throughout the country; most state and local first responders do not use compatible communications equipment. To secure the homeland better, we must link the vast amounts of knowledge residing within each government agency while ensuring adequate privacy.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies five major initiatives in this area:

· Integrate information sharing across state and local governments, private industry, and citizens;

· Adopt common "meta-data" standards for electronic information relevant to homeland security;

International Cooperation. In a world where the terrorist threat pays no respect to traditional boundaries, our strategy for homeland security cannot stop at our borders. America must pursue a sustained, steadfast, and systematic international agenda to counter the global terrorist threat and improve our homeland security. Our international anti-terrorism campaign has made significant progress since September 11. The full scope of these activities will be further described in the forthcoming National Security Strategy of the United States and the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies nine major initiatives in this area:

· Amplify international cooperation on homeland security science and technology;

The national effort to enhance homeland security will yield tremendous benefits and entail substantial financial and other costs. Benefits include reductions in the risk of attack and their potential consequences. Costs include not only the resources we commit to homeland security but also the delays to commerce and travel. The United States spends roughly $100 billion per year on homeland security. This figure includes federal, state, and local law enforcement and emergency services, but excludes most funding for the armed forces.

The responsibility of providing homeland security is shared between federal, state and local governments, and the private sector. In many cases, sufficient incentives exist in the private market to supply protection. Government should fund only those homeland security activities that are not supplied, or are inadequately supplied, in the market. Cost sharing between different levels of government should reflect the principles of federalism. Many homeland security activities, such as intelligence gathering and border security, are properly accomplished at the federal level. In other circumstances, such as with first responder capabilities, it is more appropriate for state and local governments to handle these responsibilities.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security sets a broad and complex agenda for the United States. The Strategy has defined many different goals that need to be met, programs that need to be implemented, and responsibilities that need to be fulfilled. But creating a strategy is, in many respects, about setting priorities -- about recognizing that some actions are more critical or more urgent than others.

The President’s Fiscal Year 2003 Budget proposal, released in February 2002, identified four priority areas for additional resources and attention in the upcoming year:

Work has already begun on the President’s Fiscal Year 2004 Budget. Assuming the Congress passes legislation to implement the President’s proposal to create the Department of Homeland Security, the Fiscal Year 2004 Budget will fully reflect the reformed organization of the executive branch for homeland security. That budget will have an integrated and simplified structure based on the six critical mission areas defined by the Strategy. Furthermore, at the time the National Strategy for Homeland Security was published, it was expected that the Fiscal Year 2004 Budget would attach priority to the following specific items for substantial support:

· Build new capabilities through the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Division of the proposed Department of Homeland Security;

· Prevent terrorist use of nuclear weapons through better sensors and procedures;

In the intervening months, the executive branch will prepare detailed implementation plans for these and many other initiatives contained within the National Strategy for Homeland Security. These plans will ensure that the taxpayers’ money is spent only in a manner that achieves specific objectives with clear performance-based measures of effectiveness.

1The National Strategy for Homeland Security defines "State" to mean "any state of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Canal Zone, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the trust territory of the Pacific Islands." The Strategy defines "local government" as "any county, city, village, town, district, or other political subdivision of any state, any Native American tribe or authorized tribal organization, or Alaska native village or organization, and includes any rural community or unincorporated town or village or any other public entity for which an application for assistance is made by a state or political subdivision thereof."

2The distribution of the National Strategy for Homeland Security coincides with Congress’ consideration of the President’s proposal to establish a Department of Homeland Security. The Strategy refers to a "Department of Homeland Security" only to provide the strategic vision for the proposed Department and not to assume any one part of the President’s proposal will or will not be signed into law.

If you will, an alternate point of view:

How overwhelming this is, even having lived through a similar monstrous change in the relationship between government executives and employees and Citizens during the '30's.

What's wrong with just strengthening our military and missile defense, securing our borders, tweeking our foreign policy a bit, and then go back to just walking softly and carrying a big stick? What's with all this fear-mongering and putting and keeping government executives and employees on center stage?

I repeat, this is just too overwhelming. Government executives and employees are in the process of capturing the entire country's attention, body and soul, and forcing us to play roles as both spectators and participants in what has been proclaimed to be a never-ending and ever-expanding real-life search for what may turn out to be Orwell's 'Goldstein.' I would like to know who is writing the script?

What ever happened to the days when government executives and employees used to be nothing more than a soft background noise and Citizens were pre-occupied with enjoying life, liberty and pursuing happiness? (Or did we ever have that opportunity?)

This is just too much. Sorry, but these are no longer the government executives and employees of my liking, for they are destroying the land of my inheritance and the rules which governed it. This is not a war -- its the militarization and federalization of the Citizen population and private industry. We the People are succumbing to an enterprise we will never be able to control.

I will grant you, our current chief executive is an organizer and will get the job done better and quicker than what'sisname could have.

Somebody shake me and wake me and tell me I'm having a nightmare.

Dave -- a lover of our Constitutional Republic, and a wannabe practitioner of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

The new Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2002 (first proposed by Representative Lamar Smith, R-TX) is a part of this strategy. Not surprisingly, leftists and liberals are totally opposed to the CSEA because it would violate "cyber liberties" on the Internet.

Whose "cyber liberties" are getting violated if a hacker takes over my computer and ruins my website? Libs and lefties say that the rights of the hacker are paramount!

http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz07162002.asp

"Your home is violated by a stranger late at night while you’re sleeping. The stranger, in a particularly odd gesture of twisted humor, decides to glue your toilet seat down, dump all of your milk out onto the kitchen floor and leave a note taped to your TV about how you deserved it due to your lack of a deadbolt lock used in tandem with the doorknob lock on your back door. The stranger’s note contains a condescending post script that tells you that he’d be more than happy to show you how to secure your house from future attacks like his for a modest fee and that he’s been in your house several times before just looking around for the best places to leave this note.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center and a slew of other so-called 'privacy' or 'cyber liberties' tax-exempt, non-profit, professional protest organizations in America made up of Constitutional law experts, the stranger in your home is just patriotically exercising his First Amendment rights to free speech and you really should have bought a deadbolt lock for your back door. The police should have stopped the stranger? Do you want the police watching your house 24/7? Do you really that level of privacy invasion? Are you suggesting that you want Americans to live in a police state?"

The rest is at http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz07162002.asp

Dave - I agree with you - where is the world we knew? It is gone because the terrorists have grown in power and taken ever more disastrous actions against us. We did nothing through all the other prior attacks. Did it stop them? 9/11 proves it did nothing but make them attack us even harder.

What is wrong with just strengthening our borders and military and going back to walking softly and carrying a big stick?

Nothing except many of us will be killed. Our military is needed to go after the terrorists and our homeland security is needed to protect this land. We've never had to do that before except for when the English were after us.

Did we just go on with our lives then? No, we fought and won our freedom.

Ask yourself what would have happened if the 4 Pakistanis who jumped ship in Louisiana and hired a taxi to drive them to Waco would have been ignored by the lady that reported her suspicions? They were ignored by the taxi driver asked to drive them all the way to Waco. They have now been caught and will be apprehended as illegals unless they were planning an attack on our President at his ranch.

What will happen when we have anthrax in our neighborhood, biological illnesses hitting our school children? Do we wait until we are hit to start watching?How would our FBI and government officials find these people before they attack us unless someone somewhere reported suspicious behavior? There are not FBI on every street corner.

It is overwhelming but we have the right to help protect ourselves by being watchful. As long as terrorists intend to attack citizens - I will be watchful because I am a citizen and I'll do all I can to prevent an attack.

I don't know how to respond to that, as your quote is not complete, perhaps because you did not follow the convention of quoting someone. Allow me to illustrate how it's done:

I said,

"What's wrong with just strengthening our military and missile defense, securing our borders, tweeking our foreign policy a bit, and then go back to just walking softly and carrying a big stick?"

By your italics, you quoted me as saying,

"What is wrong with just strengthening our borders and military and going back to walking softly and carrying a big stick?"

Had you not italicized the sentence, it would have been acceptable, as it would have been understood that you were paraphrasing my sentence, even though you did not paraphrase the complete sentence.

More properly, you should have done thusly in quoting the sentence, even though, partially::

"What is wrong with just strengthening our military . . . . . . . ., securing our borders, . . . . . . . ., and then go back to just walking softly and carrying a big stick?"

The 'periods' indicate missing words you felt were unimportant or irrelevant to the point you wanted to make and did not want to address in your response, which is acceptable. But even then, you run the risk of mis-representing the thoughts of the writer, as context and completeness is important. In the above example, the author was offering a scenario composed of parts, all of which the author determined were necessary to satisfy what he thought was a solution.

As I said, I don't know how to respond to your reply, as it did not address the complete point I expressed in that sentence. In essence, what you have done is use a couple of words in my reply upon which to embark on your own response, parts of which are in harmony with mine. Let's try this, at least:

You said,

"It is overwhelming but we have the right to help protect ourselves by being watchful. As long as terrorists intend to attack citizens - I will be watchful because I am a citizen and I'll do all I can to prevent an attack."

My thinking here is that our right to help goes further than just reporting. When it comes right down to it, as a Citizen, at this late date and at this stage of the war, I want to be carrying a fully-automatic weapon and a side-arm when a terrorist event is about to take place in my neighborhood. Not knowing when that may occur, it becomes necessary that I have these weapons secure and in possession at all times. What about yourself?

Best -- Dave

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