Department of Homeland Security

Examples of Department of Homeland Security in the following topics:

• Providing National Security

  • National security is the protection of the state through a variety of means that include military might, economic power, and diplomacy.
  • These organizations include the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the White House National Security Council.
  • There are a variety of governmental departments and agencies within the United States that are responsible for developing policies to ensure national security.
  • The Department—headed by the Secretary of Defense—has three subordinate military departments: the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force.
  • The Department of Homeland Security, established after the September 11, 2001 attacks, is responsible for working within the civilian sphere to protect the country from and respond to terrorist attacks, man-made accidents, and natural disasters.

• September 11th and the War on Terror

  • In the largest restructuring of the U.S. government in contemporary history, the United States enacted the Homeland Security Act of 2002, creating the Department of Homeland Security.
  • This Department centralized control over a number of different government functions in order to better control threats at home; it has many duties, including guarding U.S. borders and wielding control over the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, U.S.
  • Beginning in 2002, however, the Bush administration implemented a wide-ranging program of warrantless domestic wiretapping, known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, by the National Security Agency (NSA), giving the agency broad powers.
  • Furthermore, the Justice Department argued that the prisoners were unable to sue for their rights in U.S. courts on the grounds that the constitution did not apply to U.S. territories.
  • The Department of Homeland Security has many duties, including guarding U.S. borders and, as this organizational chart shows, wielding control over the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, U.S.

• The Budgeting Process

  • The military budget of the United States during FY 2011 was approximately $740 billion in expenses for the Department of Defense (DoD), $141 billion for veteran expenses, and $48 billion in expenses for the Department of Homeland Security, for a total of $929 billion.
  • Treasury Department.
  • Major categories of FY 2012 spending included: Medicare & Medicaid ($802B or 23% of spending), Social Security ($768B or 22%), Defense Department ($670B or 19%), non-defense discretionary ($615B or 17%), other mandatory ($461B or 13%) and interest ($223B or 6%).
  • The military budget of the United States during FY 2011 was approximately $740 billion in expenses for the Department of Defense (DoD), $141 billion for veteran expenses, and $48 billion in expenses for the Department of Homeland Security, for a total of $929 billion.
  • Non-defense discretionary spending is used to fund the executive departments (e.g., the Department of Education) and independent agencies (e.g., the Environmental Protection Agency), although these do receive a smaller amount of mandatory funding as well.

• United States in the World

  • It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and New York City hosts the United Nations Headquarters.
  • The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.
  • The Coast Guard is run by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the Department of the Navy in time of war.
  • The Department of Defense also employed about 700,000 civilians, not including contractors.
  • Secretary Clinton met with British Foreign Secretary William Hague in the Treaty Room at the Department of State, May 14, 2010

• Foreign Policy

  • Foreign policy is designed to protect the national interests of the state.
  • In the United States, foreign policy is made and carried out by the executive branch, particularly the president, with the national security adviser, the State Department, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the intelligence agencies.
  • The National Security Act of 1947 and recent bureaucratic reorganization after 9/11 reshaped the structure of foreign policy making.
  • Secretary of State is John Kerry.
  • Terrorism, conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nuclear weapons programs of Iran and North Korea, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and instability and challenges to autocratic rulers in the Middle East are only the most obvious of the foreign policy issues that affect the United States.

• Cabinet Departments

  • At the top of each department is the secretary (in the Department of Justice, the highest office is called the "attorney general," but the role is parallel to that of the secretary of state, defense, etc.).
  • The three oldest executive departments are the Department of State, the Department of War, and the Treasury, all of which were established in 1789.
  • The Department of War has since been subsumed by the Department of Defense, and many other executive departments have been formed.
  • The order of the departments, and the roles of the secretaries of each department, is as follows:
  • Homeland Security: The Secretary of Homeland Security is responsible for domestic security measures

• A Typical Department Structure

  • There are 15 current executive departments, whose secretaries comprise the Cabinet: the Departments of State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security.
  • The number of employees at each department varies widely, from about 4,500 in the Department of Education to about 3,000,000 at the Department of Defense.
  • Likewise, the departments' budgets range from 15.77 billion at the Department of Commerce to 879.2 billion at the Department of Health and Human Services.
  • At the top of each department is the secretary (in the Department of Justice, the highest office is called the "attorney general," but the role is the same as that of the secretary of state, defense, etc.).
  • The Department of Justice is typical of all executive departments in its hierarchical organization.

• The Executive Departments

  • The executive departments are administrative organs in the executive branch of the federal government.
  • The State Department (formally known as the Department of State) is the highest ranking executive department and is headed by the Secretary of State.
  • The three oldest executive departments are the Department of State, Department of War, and the Treasury, all of which were established in 1789.
  • The Department of War has since been subsumed by the Department of Defense, and many other executive departments have been formed.
  • After the vice president, speaker of the house, and the president pro tempore of the Senate, the heads of the executive departments are ranked as follows:

• The Executive Office of the President

  • The Executive Office of the President (EOP) consists of the immediate and support staff of the President of the United States.
  • The EOP encompassed two subunits at its outset: the White House Office (WHO) and the Bureau of the Budget, the predecessor to today's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which had been created in 1921 and originally located in the Treasury Department.
  • Among the most important are the Council of Economic Advisers (1946), the National Security Council and its staff (1947), the Office of the U.S.
  • Bush, additional units were added, such as the Office of Homeland Security (2001), which later became a cabinet department, and the Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives (2001).
  • Many people who work on the staff are "detailed" from other federal departments and agencies, and budgetary expenses are often charged elsewhere, for example Defense Department staff for the White House Military Office.

• The Bureaucracy

  • The United States Department of State (DoS), often referred to as the State Department, is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for the international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries.
  • As stated by the Department of State, its purpose includes:
  • The Department of Defense (also known as the Defense Department, USDOD, DOD, DoD or the Pentagon) is the executive department of the U.S. government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the U.S. armed forces.
  • The Department – headed by the Secretary of Defense – has three subordinate military departments: the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force.
  • It is an executive agency that reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence with responsibility for providing national security intelligence assessments to senior U.S. policymakers.