The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a powerful federal response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on American soil, began operations as a new Cabinet-level agency on this day in history, September 24. January 2003. .
“Our obligations are broad and our goal is clear: keep America safe,” the department states online about its mission.
The creation of DHS enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support amid the fear that followed the 9/11 attacks.
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It has drawn widespread criticism in recent years from across the political spectrum for giving a bloated federal agency the ability to meddle in the lives of ordinary Americans.
In particular, DHS has been found to be at the center of the Biden administration's alleged collusion with tech giants to censor free speech in recent years.
Tom Ridge, the first director of Homeland Security, speaks before then-President George W. Bush's speech to federal employees in the DAR Constitution Hall on July 10, 2002, in DC. President Bush spoke about the importance of creating a National Security-level Cabinet. Security Department. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
At the same time DHS was supposedly working to censor ordinary Americans, it blatantly shirked its most basic security responsibility: protecting the U.S. border.
Calls have grown in recent months to remove DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas amid growing abuses and ineffectiveness at the department.
“A mistake made in a panic would be better solved by starting over.” —The Brennan Center
DHS is now a bureaucratic behemoth with more than 240,000 employees and a fiscal year 2023 budget of $97 billion, larger than the annual budgets of 42 states.
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A frightened nation called for the creation of an overarching security agency after 9/11.
“We have learned that the vast oceans no longer protect us from the dangers of a new era,” President George W. Bush said on January 24, 2003, while leading a swearing-in ceremony for Tom Ridge as the first secretary of Homeland Security.
A fiery explosion rocks the World Trade Center after it was hit by two planes on September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“This government has a responsibility to confront the threat of terrorism wherever it exists.”
An Office of Homeland Security was created inside the White House on October 8, 2001, just four weeks after the 9/11 attacks savagely killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington, D.C., and the area. rural Pennsylvania.
“With the passage of the Homeland Security Act by Congress in November 2002, the Department of Homeland Security formally emerged as an independent, Cabinet-level department to further coordinate and unify national homeland security efforts,” DHS states. in your online report. history.
Ridge, Governor of Pennsylvania on 9/11, first assumed Homeland Security leadership duties in an advisory capacity on September 20, 2001.
He headed DHS until February 1, 2005.
“We have learned that the vast oceans no longer protect us from the dangers of a new era.” —President George W. Bush
The department combined 22 different federal departments and agencies into a unified organization to better coordinate responses to threats and attacks.
It became the fifteenth executive department under the Executive Office. It is the third largest among them.
The Homeland Security Act of November 2002 turned the White House office into the Cabinet-level department we know today.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during the 91st Winter Meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors on January 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support: a 295-132 vote in the House and a 90-9 vote in the Senate.
President Bush signed it into law on November 25.
The Homeland Security Act was one of a long list of bipartisan legislative victories by the Bush administration after 9/11.
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The unified response to the terrorist attacks belies the way the media and political opponents soon portrayed President Bush as a “go-it-alone” cowboy, to cite relentless criticism that grew increasingly fierce in the years that followed. .
The Iraq War Resolution, for example, passed 296 to 133 in the House and 77 to 23 in the Senate.
So-Sens. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Joe Biden, D-Delaware, voted in favor of both the National Security Act and the Iraq War Resolution before becoming vocal critics of the Bush administration.
The Homeland Security Act passed 295-132 in the House and 90-9 in the Senate.
Their disagreement with the unity of 9/11 quickly led to the deep political division the nation knows today.
Opposition to the National Security Law, which did not exist in 2002, has grown louder in recent years.
“Perhaps the most tangible and lasting result of the 9/11 attacks is a large, beleaguered and ill-conceived bureaucracy: the United States Department of Homeland Security,” wrote former White House staffer Richard A. Clarke for the Center Brennan in 2021.
Nina Jankowicz was appointed to lead a Disinformation Governance Board under DHS. The board was rejected after it was revealed that Jankowicz supported the now-debunked theory that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the White House in 2016 and called the Hunter Biden laptop story “disinformation.” (Arkadiusz Warguła / iStock)
“Enough time has passed since its inception to realize that the department was poorly conceived and does not improve appreciably over time.”
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The headline of Clarke's report reads: “A mistake made in the midst of panic would be best solved by starting over.”
“Several misguided DHS intelligence programs reveal that DHS is overreaching in its efforts to establish an effective role in the intelligence community,” writes the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Perhaps the most tangible and lasting result of the 9/11 attacks is a large, beleaguered and ill-conceived bureaucracy.” —Richard A. Clarke
“At least one other component of DHS, the Federal Protective Service, has spied on peaceful protests and developed and disseminated intelligence reports, even though it has no authorized intelligence mission.”
DHS has been fiercely attacked by Republicans and conservative commentators over the past year.
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The department appears to have colluded with social media giants to censor debate over the country's response to COVID-19.
The department is also accused of leading efforts to suppress news related to business deals between foreign powers and Hunter Biden, President Biden's disgraced son.
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