Free Custom «The Homeland Security» Essay Paper

Homeland security is an umbrella word that stands for security attempts to stop terrorist actions in the United States. The notion of homeland security was reinforced after the cruel attack that occurred on 9/11. The department of homeland security (DHS), which is the largest in the United States, was initiated in November 2002 on the foundation of homeland security performance. Before the department of homeland security was developed, the homeland security actions were spread among 400 federal agencies (Losey, 2007). Centered on the study offered, it is simple to determine that the issue of Homeland security has existed from early 1995 with the instructions of President Clinton’s decisions. Just a few days after the 9/11 attack, President Clinton initiated “Operation Noble Eagle” which was the conscription of 35, 500 army reservists. After a few days, the President concluded that the operation was to be organized and managed by the new Office of Homeland Security (Bartlett, 2006). That is when the present Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later replaced several federal agencies that had emerged in the name of homeland security became functional. The ultimate aim of this context is to examine the manner through which those Working Homeland Security Crises make the best choices in their plans and actions. It also looks at how ethical behavior and leadership guide choices.

 

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Understanding Homeland Security

Just as mentioned, approximately 11 days after the 9/11 incident, President Bush publicized that a homeland security office would be established within the White House. Pennsylvania’s Governor, Tom Ridge was the foremost director of the department (Wolf, 2007). The aim of the office was to look over and structure strategies to guard the country from terrorist harassments. After four weeks, a bill was initiated to develop department of homeland security, the DHS. The purpose was bringing together the agencies liable for guarding infrastructure in cabinet stage. The president settled on developing two boards inside the White House. The office of Home land Security would operate on national strategies and other associated operations to make sure that there is safety in the nation. At the same time, the homeland security council, which encompasses cabinet affiliates, would issue appropriate advice to the president concerning the matters of Homeland Security.  

The government provided a huge amount of fund to the DHS during the initial budget after 9/11. The fund was assigned to improve technology employed to issue support for the responders and Bioterrorism prevention attempts. Therefore, they tried to come up with best choices that could help them prevent terror among its people. After observing the progress in DHS, the president publicized the formation of a permanent Cabinet height department of Homeland Security. There were four departments in the organization. Each department was modeled to perform a certain set of difficulties (Conroy, 2007). These are:

• Border and Transportation Security – the main function of this department was to prevent the flow of explosive to the nation by lawful techniques.
• Emergency Preparedness and Response – their main aim was to issue support to both the local authorities and the state during emergencies (Diane, 2006).
• Chemical, Biological, Radical, and Nuclear Countermeasures – this department entails a bunch of scientist who are employ to establish technologies to identify nuclear, biological and chemical arms (Losey, 2007).
• Information Analysis and infrastructure Protection – this division is assigned to make full depiction of risks roaming around the country by gathering information from distinct agencies.

Best Choices in Plans and Actions of Homeland Security

To begin with, it was a best choice to decide to come up with different departments that deal with different types of threats all under the umbrella of DHS. That was a good strategy in the sense that it bears fruits because a few weeks after their formation, cases of terrorism in the nation reduced. This means that each department undertook its responsibilities and work serious and performed effectively (Jeffery, 2011).

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Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security also made another best choice by coming up with a new strategy of cyber security. Cyber security deals with all internet associated matters that entail the national security. This division has massive function in the sense that cyber crime is on the rise and affecting several citizens’ especially young people (Chomsky, 2005). The teenagers are the most affected in the sense that they are the great users of the internet. Cyber crime entails communicating and arranging terrorism attacks through the internet. This may be through social networks like twitter and Facebook or through email addresses (Conroy, 2007).

Most criminals prefer using this method because most of the time when they organize private meetings, the get trapped up and caught. Therefore, it was a good choice for the DHS to come up with the division that reduces cyber crimes and prevents criminals from communicating to each other and arranging attacks through the internet. The DHS implemented the use of trackers, which denotes any illegal messages being communicated through the internet. They also employ hacking process where they identify criminals and hack their email addresses to see if they have any illegal terrorism plans (Bartlett, 2006).

How Ethical Behaviors and Leadership guide Choices

Leadership is the key component for any organization because it determines its operation beginning from deciding on critical strategies to execution and implementation of the strategies (Bovard, 2008). Leadership and management coupled with proper ethical values is what determine success in an organization. DHS has good leadership, which was initiated by the President himself. Tom Ridge who was the first director of the organization also displayed good leadership and ethical values in the sense that he came up with the mode of dividing the DHS into four distinct departments that could address different types of terrorism threats. This strategy succeeded because it reduced terrorism in the United States (Losey, 2007).

This is proved by the fact that ever since the 9/11 attack, there has not been any other serious terrorism that claimed several lives like that one. This clearly shows that leadership in Department of Homeland Security headed by Tom Ridge came up with the best choice of leadership and adapted the best strategies to fight terrorism (Chomsky, 2005). Moreover, the present leaders are also doing marvelous work because they though the field has expanded in decided to increase their leadership team. Some of the leaders of Department of Homeland Security include Janet Napolitano, the secretary, Phillip McNamara, the Executive Secretary, Rear Admiral Fred Midgette, military advisor, the national Protection and program directorate, Rad Beers and Caryn Wagner, Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy (Conroy, 2007).

Values and ethics are the very crucial for any organization meaning that the organizations working in the national security ground are not exception. Values and ethics Ethical values and behaviors are greatly recognized and respected by the DHS leadership team. Values are simply things that are significant to or valued by someone (Jeffery, 2011). Note that someone may be a person or a firm. Values are very crucial where there is a vision. Security is one of the most significant things in the world and the fact that DHS is one of the most recognized security organizations in United States makes it greatly valued. The team of leadership running Department of Homeland Security value professionalism, integrity, teamwork, care and stewardship. All the members of this crew are professions who know how to handle different terror situations and are the best for tackling terror attacks (Perl, 2004).

Homeland security still has to find a way forward for the moral minefield of “satisfactory victim” that could take place while attempting to save a huge number of casualties from attack. An impenetrable airbag could shut poison or protect passengers from running away from lethal flames. This means that the Homeland Security services have a lot to deal with not just threats involving bombs and terrorist attacks (Chomsky, 2005). The fact that they deal with all sorts of threats makes them the best because coming up with strategies of handling all kinds of threats is not is and that is why they are the most valued for their professionalism and care. They believe that human control could stop such dangerous difficulties when the pug is deployed. The plug is a technique whereby (Wolf, 2007).

Note that their processes and operations are not easy because they face a lot of challenges. For example, in the recent past, they faced a very commuter’s nightmare whereby a terrorist bombed a passageway car in a subversive channel that lead to lose of passenger lives as well as ensnaring several other people in the smoking debris (Bovard, 2008). At the same time, another compartment discharged a chemical agent in the passageway, and the imperceptible toxic claimed hundreds of lives and sickened thousands. This clearly shows that despite their successive operations, the Department of Homeland Security also undergoes through many challenges (Bartlett, 2006). The DHS management team sat down and plotted another strategy that could help them fight such deadly threats. Note that these threats taken place in Tokyo in 1995 and in London in 2005, and therefore, the United States government had to stop recurring of such deadly threats. Hence, they developed a tool that could counteract the subterranean frights – giant tunnel plug (Perl, 2004).

The DHS silently experiment an inflatable airbag in the D.C. Metro that could save lives and change the manner through which the DHS responds to fires and flooding. Despite this effort, the program manager for the Infrastructure and Geophysical Division at DHS, John Fortune stated that, “it would be very hard to achieve a solution to the problems posed by each threat” (Chomsky, 2005). He added on that, “Water is heavy, fire is hot, chemical and biological agents can scatter easily.” He concluded that his team had to stop all the threats, and believed an über airbag could do the trick.

The airbag works in a manner that it has sensors that are entrenched along passageway walls that detect breaches and organize swiftly blowing up airbags. In a perfect circumstance, the inflammable airbags would impede hem in fires or floodwaters permitting passengers to run away trains and cars in good time (Jeffery, 2011). When it was being experimented, it too only three minutes to attain the size of the channel and regulated to the “shades” of its nature. In order to make it more effective, the management lead by John Fortune decided to deploy a powered fan that could make the airbag inflate in less than a minute.

Conclusion

Therefore, Department of Homeland Security is very effective in handling crises and fighting threats of all types because it is ready to come up with new strategies everyday in order to make sure terrorism threats reduces to zero. Its leadership coupled with values and ethics is just marvelous because it cares for the US citizens and ensures there is safety in the entire country.