The Future of Homeland Security - Essay Sample

Since the September 11th attack, the US government together with the private sectors has both orchestrated sophisticated means to safeguard the assets as well as the people. The threats progressively evolve and they are becoming more treacherous. The threat does not only involve just terrorists that target the infrastructures, but they are also targeting the insider threats like the mass shooting such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, PFC Manning, and the bombing of the crowd like the 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist attack (Lee, 2014). Such kind of events makes it significant for both the private and the public sectors to get involved in the effective partnership to secure the people, infrastructures together with the entire national infrastructure assets. The private sector is more exposed to the ordinary population as compared to the Homeland security personnel, they interact with many types of people including those that have malicious intent against the country's security. The Homeland Security has chosen to involve the private security in their mission towards ensuring a secure and safe country. The key role of private companies with regards to terrorism prevention is to create awareness of any threat and being vigil and eye alert for any suspicious activities or persons. The private companies through their hired security personnel and employees are trained to manage theft; they also keep the same eye put to counter-terrorism. According to the 2014 quadrennial Homeland Security Review, it was noted that there are five basic homeland security missions that are essential in addressing the hazards and threats from the near term. The following research seeks to state and discuss the five main missions of the Homeland Security as per the 2014 quadrennial Homeland Security Review.

Mission 1: Prevent Terrorism and Enhance Security

Terrorism is an international phenomenon since the 1970s, but it became a turning point in the US when it experienced the terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001, and now it has become an adverse threat to the people of United States, the terror attacks are even unpredictable and more clever methods are required to handle the situation. As mentioned above, the principal role of the private sectors is to be vigilant to any suspicious activities that are perceived to be a threat to the lives of the people. May, Jochim, and Sapotichne (2011), states that, the private sectors, especially the security guards are attentive to the some of the pre-meditated behaviors that terrorists tend to do. Some of the pre-meditated behaviors that private sector suspect with terrorists includes:

Identity card misrepresentation

Distracting the security personnel

Buying weapons

Testing the security system to understand how they operate and see whether they are faulty.

Trying to acquire some information from the employees as well as customers

Seeming out of place

They tend to survey the surrounding by photographing and studying

Trying to avoid the security checks and CCTV camera to conceal their facial identity

The private companies security teams are trained with the knowledge and understanding on how to get hold of people who suspicious of creating terrorist attack towards infrastructure or individual people (May, Jochim, & Sapotichne 2011). The private sector work with the homeland security in the following ways:

Reporting a car that has been parked in the same location for a long period without knowing the owner.

Getting hold of the people and the cars that are avoiding surveillance cameras.

Conducting pre-employment screening of the prospectus workers and already existing workers to detect any suspicious activity that may become a threat to the security in case of any threat detected or misinterpretation of the information the Homeland security is notified.

Installing modern and high definition closed-circuit television (CCTV) for surveillance purpose.

Informing the employees and security personnel to conduct active and random patrolling in the external and internal area of the business premises.

Reporting any suspicious goods that seem to be creating a security alert or luggage that are left unattended.

Screening all the clients and visitor s that comes to the business premise to ensure that no one has carried any weapon or explosive that may be perceived as the threat to human life.

Mission 2: Secure and Manage our Borders

Security within the borders of the United States is considered to a major focus after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack. Nelson and Wise (2013) affirms that, tThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has committed itself to protect the borders of the country by establishing the Homeland Security Act of 2002; however, the private companies are required to play part in ensuring that there is safety in the country's borders. Groups such as Minuteman Project, which is a private sector made up of citizens who have taken the initiative to arrest the people who tend to destroy the border fencing and illegally cross to the unites states. Groups like Minuteman Project are protected by law since the law allows the citizens in the private sector to arrest anyone one tries to commit the felony (Nelson & Wise, 2013). The private companies are the ones that have more idea on how they can actually protect the borders, since during their business activities; they interact with people from different ethnicity and different groups that are from different places in the world. In that case, the companies the companies can help the Department of Homeland Security in these ways:

Report any person who is possession of the passports or identification card that misrepresent them.

Employ foreigners that are confirmed by the authority to work in the United States. The employees should not consider the illegal immigrant.

Scrutinize the goods that they receive in case the business is operating in the ports, borders or working as logistic companies. Many terrorists like taking any slight opportunity to import life-threatening weapons, or transporting them from one location to another for the terrorism purpose or to be exploded during transit to kill the passengers on the vehicle. Companies can take the initiative of checking the details of the goods that they are receiving and the owners who will be liable in case of a threat.

The companies that work in the clearing and forwarding should not clear goods whose identity is unknown, hazardous or illegal.

The companies should not be the accomplice to the smuggling of illegal goods, drugs, weapons.

Most of the terrorist attacks are being orchestrated with the illegal foreigners who use forged documents to gain access to the United States in order to conduct their criminal activities. According to Nelson and Wise (2013), many of the private business individuals or associates might have come across some of the illegal immigrants who have malicious intentions against the US, and therefore, they are in the better position of reporting any suspicious person that they see around.

Mission 3: Enforce and Administer our Immigration Laws

As discussed above, securing of borders can be supported by the enforcing and administering of the immigration laws. The legislation has teamed up with the executive in providing the legal framework that will help in regulating the immigrants that come to visit the United States.

After the 9/11 attack in the Washington and New York, the Homeland Security Act was transferred to all the functions of the US Immigration and Neutralization Service (INS) to the new Depart of Homeland Security (DHS), which comprises of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The Homeland Security has the responsibility of ensuring that there is the improvement of the border security as well as the proper mechanism for regulating the visa entry. The businesses can support the Homeland Security by adopting the electronic data system where the information relevant to the removability and admission of the immigrants is included (Obama, 2010). The business can also ensure that the people who identify themselves to their premises are legally in the country and they respect the immigration laws that are enacted by the federal government under the Homeland Security.

Mission 4: Safeguard and Secure Cyberspace

Many companies have reported a significant financial loss associated with the cyberspace crime. The Homeland Security is endeavoring at ensuring that they have enacted proper measures that will ensure that the cyberspace is safe and secure. Some of the threats that are affecting the government and business include; Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), botnets, hacking. Pharming and malware. Cutter et.al, (2008) shows that, the private business can engage in securing and safeguarding the cyberspace by reporting incidences the crimes that are associated with cyberspace such as the scam and fraud that are considered to be a way of extortion, The business can keep records of such activities so that the homeland security can get hold of the perpetrators. The private business organizations can take part in the reforming the procedure for forensic investigation and form legislations pertaining the cybersecurity (Cutter et.al, 2008). The DHS requires the private companies in detecting, investigating and charge individuals culpable of the cyberspace crime that is committed within the business environment.

Mission 5: Strengthen National Preparedness and Resilience

The private sector plays an important role in the agility, adaptability, and mitigation. The private sector can cooperate with the government agencies like the Homeland Security to strategies the disaster preparedness that will be beneficial to both the business and the entire country; this will help in preparedness, recovery, and response in an event of a disaster (Cutter et.al, 2008). Also, the private sectors will be able to enhance the emergency response and hence make them be cost-effective.

Conclusion

To sum up, improvement of the homeland security depends on the crucial steps taken by the private sector towards the national security especially in the case of national security. The collaboration can be enhanced by training the staff, detecting and reporting any suspicious activity that relates to terrorism, recruiting legal immigrants as well as offering information that relates to the cyberspace to the law enforcement agencies.

References

Cutter, S. L., Barnes, L., Berry, M., Burton, C., Evans, E., Tate, E., & Webb, J. (2008). A place-based model for understanding community resilience to natural disasters. Global environmental change, 18(4), 598-606.Lavelle, E., & Betancourt, J. (2016). Examining Coastal Resiliency: How Policy, Education, Partnerships, and Data Can Help Change the Future.Lee, E. (2014). Homeland Security and Private Sector Business: Corporations' Role in Critical Infrastructure Protection. CRC Press.May, P. J., Jochim, A. E., & Sapotichne, J. (2011). Constructing homeland security: An anemic policy regime. Policy Studies Journal, 39(2), 285-307.

Nelson, R., & Wise, R. (2013). Homeland Security at a Crossroads: Evolving DHS to Meet the Next Generation of Threats. Center for Strategic and International Studies, February, 1.

Obama, B. (2010). National security strategy of the United States (2010). Diane Publishing.