Posted on 06/10/2002 11:54:31 AM PDT by PhiKapMom
DEPARTMENT WILL IMPROVE AGENCIES' COOPERATION
President Bush's proposal for a Department of Homeland Security with its own Cabinet secretary may be, as critics claim, timed to counter the impact of the congressional investigations into the failure of our nation's intelligence agencies to share information that could have provided warnings of the Sept. 11 attack.
Nevertheless, and despite the turf battles that will undoubtedly ensue, the idea is a good one and the plan should be pursued.
The agency the president is proposing would include the Coast Guard, Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service and Border Patrol in its border and transportation security division. The Federal Emergency Management Agency would be part of its emergency preparedness and response unit. The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, now part of the Energy Department, would be part of the new agency's chemical biological and nuclear countermeasures division. The Secret Service would be part of the new department, which also would include an information analysis and infrastructure protection unit -- a central place for assessing and coordinating intelligence gathered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies that gather such information.
Putting these agencies under one umbrella in the Department of Homeland Security seems much more logical that the present system, which entrusts the Treasury Department with protecting our president and house Customs, the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol in three different agencies when they ought to be able to work together with a minimum of red tape.
We have been impressed with the way state and local law enforcement personnel have been working together in recent years, sharing information to catch criminals who commit crimes in more than one jurisdiction or to eliminate suspects. When Oklahoma City police arrested a man who looked like a possible suspect for the Juli Busken murder this February, a shared saliva sample quickly provided DNA evidence ruling him out as a suspect, saving police time and taxpayer dollars. This kind of cooperation should be a model for the FBI and the CIA. At the federal level "unified commands" between the various branches of the service have already been implemented and deemed a success.
This proposal will have to go through congress, and no doubt some changes will be made during that process. The main idea, combining a group of agencies that need to work together into one department under one Cabinet secretary, is one whose time has come.
Anyway, I'm back and I see nothing has changed here at FR:) The Bush Bashers are as loud and obnoxious as ever.
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