The world faces varied security threats today. These threats range from terrorist attacks to cybercrimes. The world is regularly faced with numerous catastrophic natural and humanmade events. In 2001, September 11, nineteen terrorists attacked the United States. These terrorists hijacked aeroplanes, hitting them against the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. This attack killed around a thousand people and resulted in enormous financial as well as property damage.
After this experience, many individuals were worried that the United States would be faced with the same attacks again on a massive scale that would be more than 9/11. In reaction to this devastating fear sentiment as well as inspiration by responsibility sense, the administration of Bush enacted numerous sweeping new regulations and laws that granted federal agents greater authority to inhibit future attacks from terrorists. In particular, the administration of Bush founded the Homeland Security Department, which has the duty of coordinating the various anti-terrorism events of total law enforcement organizations and agencies from the central hub (Beckman, 2016). Whereas the action of the administration Bush was a move that was based on legitimate grounds, the Homeland Security business since that time included a costly initiative that inflates terrorism threats as well as channelling the budgetary finances towards policies which do not have anything to do with fighting terrorism.
For the discussion of Homeland Security and terrorism, it is critical to understand the meaning of these terms and the definitions given by the government. The administration of Bush defined Homeland Security as a concerted countrywide effort within the U.S. presenting terrorist attacks, decreasing the vulnerability of America to terrorism as well as minimizing the damage that was caused by these attacks. Also, the original document included bringing together various state actors, Congress, the private sector, and the people of America in an effort to prevent terrorism (Sauter & Carafano, 2012). At the same time, the United States Code Title 22 defines terrorism as the politically inspired, premeditated violence that is perpetrated by sub-national clandestine agents or groups against noncombatant targets, which is mainly intended to sway an audience. Similarly, this definition affirms the definition that states that the main objective of the terrorist act is not only damage infliction but also the effect it has on the broad audience.
The terrorist costs are many. It results in property damage as well as the taking of people’s lives. However, in the United States case, according to the words of Niskanen, there are various terrorist cost dimensions that are the function of a terrorism response rather than the action of terrorism. The real terrorist threat is massively overblown, whereas the amount of resources generated to fight against terrorism is excessively high. For instance, between the year 1996 and the year 2006, less than four hundred Americans per year died as a result of foreign and domestic terrorism. In contrast, the number of individuals who died as a result of road accidents was a hundred times higher than those of terrorism. However, the government neither inform the public nor alerts them over these traffic accidents that cause massive deaths as well, and it does not assign a large amount of money to thwart these deaths in the same way it allocates money and alerts about terrorist attacks (Mueller & Stewart, 2011).
There are other expenditures related to Homeland Security that Americans have paid by sacrificing their numerous civil liberties. These include stricter immigration rules and regulations, airport restrictions that at times unnecessarily harass legal non-citizens, greater client-attorney dialogues, eavesdropping, eavesdropping on people’s conversations using the state’s telephone companies, as well as ethnic minorities’ racial profiling. The new measures of homeland security also approved the FBI to take charge of secret entries into business offices and homes without the consent of the owner of these properties, gaining access to any person’s medical, financial, and library records, as well as employment without the judge’s approval.
Not only do American citizens sacrifice their civil liberties but also the finances that are used in covering the various new measures of Homeland Security (Hobijn, 2002). For example, the various new examination procedures that the Transport Security Administration (TSA) implemented cost the American taxpayers approximately 5 billion dollars every year. Also, air travellers spend an additional hour or more at the airport before travelling or accessing the country. Therefore, these are other expenditures that are related to Homeland Security costs that Americans pay as a way of preventing terrorist attacks.
As part of the Homeland Security Program to thwart terrorism, the United States government started the system of colour-coded alerts, which, other than causing fear, anxiety, and confusion, do not have any other purpose. It is not very clear how these colour-code alerts prevent terrorism in the country. Although the system of colour-coded alerts’ purpose is to prevent possible terrorist attacks, there are other costs related to homeland security that have nothing to do with preventing or fighting terrorism. There is an increased defence budget, for example, the various systems of New High Tech Weapons that have no contribution to defence against terrorism. This system of weapons includes the new submarine nuclear that costs approximately 3 billion dollars each, a system of Ballistic Missile defense, and the fifth generation fighter jets, among other systems that are capable of fighting conventional wars, though they are highly ineffective in preventing terrorist attacks. Other homeland security procedures, like passing the agricultural legislature, referred to as a Farm Security Act, do not have any anti-terrorism semblance (White, 2016).
Benjamin Friedman from the Institute of CATO, Foreign Policy Writing, gives more illustrations of such expenditures of the various non-anti-terrorism measures. For instance, in 2003, 725,000 dollars were set for Tulsa, Oklahoma, to secure port funds. In 2005, the island of northern Mariana received over 4 million dollars as part of the anti-terrorism budget. In 2003, Grand Forks County, in North Dakota, received approximately 1.5 million dollars from federal funds for purchasing trailer equipment so that it could respond to the yearly increase in nuclear attacks. Furthermore, these costs slowly increase each year. For example, in 2001, the federal spending on responding to terror attacks cost 616 dollars, then in 2004, it increased to a whopping 3.4 billion dollars. Therefore, the yearly budget of the Department of Homeland Security is approximately the same as that of Russia’s yearly defence budget.
The problem is not all about the mismanagement of resources; the Department of Homeland Security also appears to be an enormous bureaucracy plagued by incompetence, failure, and ineffectiveness. The staff of Homeland Security and Congressional assessments agree on this as well. Thomas Kean, also the commission chairman of 9/11, stated in 2005: “While the terrorists are learning and adapting, our government is still moving at a crawl.” This statement reveals the reality of the Department of Homeland Security, where even the personnel consider it the worst working place because of how they treat their personnel. Out of the yearly budget of this department, only 65 per cent is used in programs that correctly relate to homeland security (Mueller & Stewart, 2011). The rest of these bureaucratic pieces do not fit the organizations that thwart the nation against terrorism.
The terrorism inflating dangers redirect various resources from probable as well as real dangers and thus may make the citizens of America less safe. There are numerous stakeholders interested in keeping the state of high alertness, including individuals who are bankrolled by the Department of Homeland Security. To explain the dysfunction or, rather, the functions of homeland security, Friedman applies the precautionary principle concept, which is the concept used by the environmental and health rules and regulations in determining favourable risks in health as well as the environment. Thus, Friedman states, “The government takes prevention actions, and it is intervention is warranted even if the evidence that the activity is harmful is uncertain and the cost of preventive action is high.” The administration of Bush that has the preemptive doctrine as well as the allocation of massive amounts of money for the Department of Homeland Security that is not dealing with terrorism affairs is an excellent trait of the precautionary principle (Hobijn, 2002).
However, a precautionary principle is not a good model to follow in national policies because it may render the prevention attempts incoherent, irreverent, and useless. The attempt to regulate the advantageous risks is problematic since the government cannot handle one risk because of the risks multiplicity of risks that involve the health as well as the environmental problems or terrorism danger in that matter. Attempts to handle one risk may result in the overusing of resources that are needed in various government programs, which can lead to many other risks. Therefore, precautionary principles may result in additional dangers as a result of unintended risk prevention consequences.
To sum homeland security was developed after the American attack by nineteen terrorists (White, 2016). This department has led to a costly initiative that inflates terrorism threats as well as channelling the budgetary finances towards policies which do not have anything to do with fighting terrorism. Therefore, it is a department that costs the American citizens.
References
Beckman, J. (2016). Comparative legal approaches to homeland security and anti-terrorism. Routledge.
Hobijn, B. (2002). What will homeland security cost?
Mueller, J., & Stewart, M. G. (2011). Terror, security, and money: Balancing the risks, benefits, and costs of homeland security. Oxford University Press.
Sauter, M., & Carafano, J. (2012). Homeland Security: A Complete Guide 2/E. McGraw Hill Professional.
White, J. R. (2016). Terrorism and homeland security. Cengage Learning.
