Issues in terrorism (emergency management & budget concerns)

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OTA 105878
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Terrorism

1. Throughout the history of emergency management in the US, the priorities set for government emergency management agencies have been driven by the most widely perceived threat or hazard. How do you think the new threat of terrorism and the hazards associated with terrorism will impact the practice of emergency management in the US at all levels of government (federal, state, and local) and in the business sector?

9-11 stretched the capacity for emergency response not just of the city of New York but of the varied locations and events hit by or caused by the terror attacks, that as soon as the first hour was up, the nation was responding as a singular entity with the emergency systems up and running and offices and personnel responding according to protocol and the challenges of the attack from the Office of the President, the military, law enforcement State & federal and emergency services like fire-fighters, on-scene responders, investigators, etc. The US government looks at the American Nation as a risk society.
Risk Society according to Sociologist Anthony Giddens "a society increasingly preoccupied with the future (and also with safety), which generates the notion of risk" (1999). 9-11 caused America to review its fundamental values, but above all, caused America to redesign its emergency response system to counteract and answer a terrorist threat. There are varied definitions of terrorism and reasons behind them (fanatical, political, state-sponsored, etc.). One thing is sure though - a terrorist act seeks to hold a nation hostage by the use of terror and violence as a means of coercion. While the nation pre-9/11 was well-equipped to respond to natural emergencies (flooding, earthquakes, fire), terrorism is a two pronged fight, in the battlefronts of Afghanistan, Iraq and varied other locations (including domestically) for the purpose of breaking up terror cells or to stabilise a region to deter the development of radicalization; then there is the preventive method - a campaign that involves the media and instigation of new policies to prevent terrorism from taking hold. How is this connected to emergency response? From a law enforcement & military point of view, all these counter & direct anti-terrorism campaigns are included in the American-led War on Terror whereby a blueprint for emergency response in case of attacks to the homeland are also included. Terrorism, after 9-11 has now become the central threat to the American Nation. Prior to 9-11 emergency response to threats was handled under the office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Homeland Security Act of 2002 created the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This new agency absorbed FEMA and recombined or absorbed other agencies into the office to create a streamlined agency that provides a broad and encompassing national effort in all levels of government to protect all the territories & citizens of the US nation from all threats and hazards, external & internal, natural or man-made. With the Coast Guard, U.S. Customs, National included in the agencies put under the wing of the DHS, a Federal Response to any threat, especially terrorism is guaranteed to be streamlined and robust compared to the systems in place pre 2002. Parts of the DHS's actions are to retrain, coordinate and inform State & Local, monitoring 24-7 to ensure that the fight against terrorism is ever vigilant to avoid another 9-11. Has it changed? Yes.

Word Count: 491
References:
(Web)
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/emergencypreparedness/responder.html
http://www.dhs.gov/index.shtm
(Print)
Giddens, Anthony (1999), "Risk and Responsibility", Modern Law Review.

2. Discuss the role of the military in homeland security.

The Military in Homeland Security

Unless otherwise given the go signal by the US Congress, as ordered by the President or authorized (by legislation) of the US Constitution, the US Military is prevented from performing law enforcement & policing functions within the US soil through the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This Act was instituted after reconstruction and limited/prevented the Army, Air Force, and Navy & National Guard Forces from law enforcement as a response/prohibition to the occupation of the US Confederate Troops during the reconstruction after the Civil War. It was this Act that led to the Compromise of 1877 that allowed all States to be responsible for their own laws within their territories which at the time included anti-Slave laws. This Compromise however ended the Reconstruction, the final phase of the nation's recovery after the Civil War. Posse Comitatus is still in place and is observed by the US since 1878. That is why domestically, the FBI and the Law Enforcement ...