Hopefully, this means profiling.
The New York Times
July 13, 2005
Chertoff Restructuring Homeland Security Department
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, July 13 - Saying that the nation must "maximize our security, but not security at any price," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced today that he is restructuring the sprawling two-year-old department so that it is better able to prevent - or at least respond to - the next terrorist attack.
The restructured Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Chertoff said, will move passengers more quickly through aviation screening checkpoints, while more effectively identifying possible terrorists. It will ease the student and tourist visa application process even as it cuts the rising flow of illegal immigration across the nation's land borders, he said.
It will also know more about the items inside shipping containers headed for the United States - and who has handled them since they left factories around the globe - while its Customs officers move imports and exports more expeditiously, he said.
"Much work has been done," Mr. Chertoff said in a 45-minute speech to hundreds of employees from the two-year old department that he took over five months ago. "Much remains to do."
Many of the details of how Mr. Chertoff intends to accomplish these goals were not provided today, as the homeland security secretary said his speech was just the start of a series of announcements that will follow what he has called "second stage review" of the department, which he ordered shortly after he arrived in February.
The only two specific proposals he disclosed today were the abolition of the 30-minute, no-standing rule for flights landing at and taking off from Reagan National Airport and the requirement that first-time visitors from 27 nations submit 10 fingerprints, instead of two, to better check their identity against a database of criminals and suspected terrorists.
Since its creation in March 2003, Homeland Security has been repeatedly criticized for wasteful spending on contracts, too much bureaucracy, rivalries among its different units and an ineffective plan for how to best protect the nation's most important and vulnerable buildings and infrastructure.
Echoing comments he has made since he first took over the department, Mr. Chertoff said the primary focus of the Department of Homeland Security will be to identify the most catastrophic possible terrorist attacks and then do whatever it can to prevent them, or respond to them.
"Some of the tools needed to prevent, respond and recover from such awful scenarios are already in place," Mr. Chertoff said. "Others need significant improvement."
That means, hiring a new chief medical officer to make detailed plans for how to handle the thousands of casualties that might result if a biological, chemical or nuclear attack occurs. It also means appointing a new top intelligence chief to collect information developed by the department's 22 agencies and quickly try to foil any plots. The secretary will also name an assistant secretary for cyber and telecommunications security.
"We as a nation must make tough choices about how to invest finite human and financial capital to attain the optimal state of preparedness," Mr. Chertoff said.
Some of the changes will come through a shuffling of the organization chart. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will now focus exclusively on responding to catastrophes, instead of helping local and state governments prevent them. As a result, all prevention duties will now be handled by a new entity called the Directorate for Preparedness, which will oversee the billions in grants the department gives out each year to local and state governments and devise specific plans for how to protect key national buildings or monuments from attack.
Much of what Mr. Chertoff hopes to accomplish will rely on the use of new technologies, a solution that has not always proven effective in the short life of the department. He wants the department to quickly develop a new generation of devices that can detect biological, nuclear and chemical weapons, acknowledging that the equipment it has already is insufficient. It also must buy more advanced devices that can prevent terrorists from carrying explosives onto planes, one major weakness in the aviation security system, which screens most passengers only for metal objects. He also called for the deployment of machines that can detect explosives terrorists might attempt to carry onto subways or trains and the more sophisticated tracking system for cargo carried into the United States by ship or truck.
Reaction to the restructuring plan was generally positive from terrorism experts and Capitol Hill.
David Heyman, the director of the Homeland Security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization in Washington, said that even though many of the changes were bureaucratic, he was impressed.
"This is unprecedented to see an executive branch reform itself so quickly after it was established," Mr. Heyman said. "It shows that Chertoff is no nonsense, take charge and balanced."
But some observers said they were not impressed, as the proposal had few details about how Mr. Chertoff intends to actually better protect the nation.
"The Bush administration should put forward real policy proposals to plug our homeland security vulnerabilities, instead of just moving people's offices around and changing the department's stationery," said Representative Edward J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the Homeland Security Committee. |
