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By Turner D. Madden,
Esquire
Secretary Michael Chertoff
announced a six-point agenda for the Department of Homeland Security
designed to ensure that the Department’s policies, operations, and
structures are aligned in the best way to address the potential threats –
both present and future – that face our nation.
The announcement reflects conclusions drawn as a result of the Second Stage
Review, a careful study of the Department’s programs, policies, operations
and structure. The Review examined nearly every element of the Department of
Homeland Security in order to recommend ways that DHS could better manage
risk in terms of threat, vulnerability and consequence; prioritize policies
and operational missions according to this risk-based approach; and
establish a series of preventive and protective steps that would increase
security at multiple levels.
The Secretary’s six-point agenda will guide DHS in the near term and result
in changes that will:
• Increase overall preparedness, particularly for catastrophic events;
• Create better transportation security systems to move people and cargo
more securely and efficiently;
• Strengthen border security and interior enforcement and reform immigration
processes;
• Enhance information sharing with our partners; • Improve DHS financial
management, human resource development, procurement and information
technology; and
• Realign the DHS organization to maximize mission performance. Secretary
Chertoff announced that details of new policy initiatives in these six areas
will be announced in the coming weeks and months, including:
• A new approach to securing our borders through additional personnel, new
technologies, infrastructure investments, and interior enforcement - coupled
with efforts to reduce the demand for illegal border migration by channeling
migrants seeking work into regulated legal channels;
• Restructuring the current immigration process to enhance security and
improve customer service;
• Reaching out to state homeland security officials to improve information
exchange protocols, refine the Homeland Security Advisory System, support
state and regional data fusion centers, and address other topics of mutual
concern; and
• Investing in the Department’s most important asset – its people – with
topnotch professional career training and development efforts.
Organizational Initiatives: Structural
Adjustments to DHS
The Secretary also announced details of his proposal for realigning the
Department of Homeland Security to increase its ability to prepare, prevent,
and respond to terrorist attacks and other emergencies. These changes will
better integrate the Department, giving DHS employees better tools to help
them accomplish their mission. These management tools will:
• Centralize and Improve Policy Development and
Coordination. A new Directorate of Policy, ultimately led by an
Under Secretary upon enactment of legislation, will serve as the primary
Department-wide coordinator for policies, regulations, and other
initiatives. This Directorate will ensure the consistency of policy and
regulatory development across various parts of the Department as well as
perform long-range strategic policy planning. It will assume the policy
coordination functions previously performed by the Border and Transportation
Security (BTS) Directorate. It will also create a single point of contact
for internal and external stakeholders by consolidating or co-locating
similar activities from across the department. This new Directorate will
include:
• Office of International Affairs;
• Office of Private Sector Liaison;
• Homeland Security Advisory Council;
• Office of Immigration Statistics; and
• Senior Asylum Officer
• Strengthen Intelligence Functions and Information
Sharing. A new Office of Intelligence and Analysis will ensure
that information is gathered from all relevant field operations and other
parts of the intelligence community; analyzed with a mission-oriented focus;
informative to senior decision makers; and disseminated to the appropriate
federal, state, local, and private sector partners. Led by a Chief
Intelligence Officer who reports directly to the Secretary, this office will
be comprised of analysts within the former Information Analysis directorate
and draw on expertise of other DHS components with intelligence collection
and analysis operations.
• Improve Coordination and Efficiency of
Operations. A new Director of Operations Coordination will enable
DHS to more effectively conduct joint operations across all organizational
elements; coordinate incident management activities; and utilize all
resources within the Department to translate intelligence and policy into
immediate action. The Homeland Security Operations Center, which serves as
the nation’s nerve center for information sharing and domestic incident
management on a 24/7/365 basis, will be a critical part of this new office.
• Enhance Coordination and Deployment of
Preparedness Assets. The Information Analysis and Infrastructure
Protection Directorate will be renamed the Directorate for Preparedness and
consolidate preparedness assets from across the Department. The Directorate
for Preparedness will facilitate grants and oversee nationwide preparedness
efforts supporting first responder training, citizen awareness, public
health, infrastructure and cyber security and ensure proper steps are taken
to protect high-risk targets. The directorate will be managed by an Under
Secretary and include:
• A new Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications,
responsible for identifying and assessing the vulnerability of critical
telecommunications infrastructure and assets; providing timely, actionable
and valuable threat information; and leading the national response to cyber
and telecommunications attacks;
• A new Chief Medical Officer, responsible for carrying out the Department’s
responsibilities to coordinate the response to biological attacks – and to
serve as a principal liaison between DHS and the Department of Health and
Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of
Health, and other key parts of the biomedical and public health communities;
• Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection;
• Assets of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and
Preparedness responsible for grants, training and exercises;
• U.S. Fire Administration; and
• Office of National Capitol Region Coordination. The Homeland Security Act
of 2002 (HSA) provides certain flexibility for the Secretary of Homeland
Security to establish, consolidate, alter or discontinue organizational
units within the Department. The mechanism for implementing these changes is
a notification to Congress, required under section 872 of the HSA, allowing
for the changes to take effect after 60 days.
Mr. Turner
Madden serves as the outside General Counsel for IAAM. If you have any
questions or comments, you may contact Mr. Madden at Madden & Patton, LLC,
1700 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20006; telephone
202/349-2050 or e-mail
maddesq@bellatlantic.net. |
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