Terrorism and Homeland Security

Introduction
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arose from the ashes of the Twin Towers on 9/11 as the federal government’s response to the threat of terror. That threat has been represented in a number of incarnations: the Saudi hijackers, Al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, ISIS, and so on. Today, with ISIS being acknowledged as largely defeated in the Middle East, the new security threat that the U.S. faces is unclear (Cronin, 2015) and the old security threats—the specter of terrorism that continues to rear its head both abroad and domestically—appear to have shifted into new forms. In an ironic twist, Americans themselves appear to be more like homegrown terrorists in their attacks on fellow citizens, whether these attacks are conducted at schools or at social venues where crowds gather for enjoyment. Terrorism and mass killing appears to be the new chosen method of expressing one’s own personal jihad on a culture, a group of people, or on a time and place. The hypothesis of this paper is: If the threat of terrorism goes away, does the need for the Department of Homeland Security also go away, or is the DHS now to be viewed as a permanent feature of the American government? The thesis is: In a nation where “inverted totalitarianism” has been used to describe the governmental system (Atkinson, 2005), Homeland Security needs a foil like terrorism to justify its own existence and therefore the threat of terrorism must always be acknowledged. This has ramifications for the nature of security management both in the U.S. and abroad as well as the culture of today.
Background
A generation raised in the shadow of terrorism is now reaching adulthood, with nearly two decades passed since 9/11 reshaped the geopolitical orientation of the world. As Bush (2001) declared, “You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists.” America’s response to 9/11 divided the world into black and white, with leaders having to choose whether they would support America in its war against terrorism, or choose to withhold its support and be labeled an enemy. Americans were told that the attack had been perpetrated by Al-Qaeda, masterminded by Osama Bin Laden, supported by Hussein in Iraq, and ultimately aided by other leaders of the Arab world—from Gaddafi in Libya to Assad in Syria, Iran, and now Russia—though the intelligence has invariably been wrongfooted in almost every case (Coletta, 2018). In the midst of this was the DHS with its own intelligence enterprise “largely ‘on the outside of the Intelligence Community with its nose pressed against the glass’” looking in (Murray, 2008). What did it bring to the table that the roughly two dozen other U.S. intelligence agencies lacked? What role could it play in the new war against terrorism? If the CIA, FBI, and various other apparatuses had failed to secure the U.S. on 9/11, how would the DHS, which was essentially cut from the same cloth as the others—just made up of newer members—respond to the challenges when it barely had an invite to the big table? In order to justify its existence, it would have to show something in the way of contributing to the war.
Analysis
Brittain (2016) explains that the counterterrorism industry is less about preventing terrorism than it is about perpetuating the idea of an existential threat of terrorism—in much the same way the military industrial complex thrives on the specter of war and the way the prison industrial complex thrives on the perpetuation of the criminalization of acts that two centuries ago would have been deemed legal. DHS has facilitated in the spending of billions—more than $50 billion since its inception in fact—with much of that going to the defense contractors so prominent within the military industrial complex, from Boeing to Lockheed Martin (Department of Homeland Security, 2018). To aid in the psychological preparation for this funneling of cash to the security industry, DHS focused on formulating a “new National Threat Advisory system. This system used color-coded levels to express the state of threats to the country, from ‘green’ (low threat) to ‘red’ (severe). The responsibilities of many DHS offices were to prepare for future terrorist attacks in order to minimize the impact of such assaults” (Department of Homeland Security, 2018).
The National Threat Advisory system was used to raise awareness among the populace about the current possibility of a terror attack: travelers were especially prone to threat advisory announcements, such as at airports where they were already being subjected to additional scrutiny under the watchful eyes of the new TSA. As Ganderton, Brookshire and Bernknopf (2004) state, the biggest problem with the advisory system is that “the threat is poorly specified, such that even if responsive actions are indicated, agencies, businesses and the public will not take any action because they do not know exactly what threat they are reacting to” (p. 137). As such, the public is simply acclimated to a climate of fear and paranoia, told repeatedly from transit PA systems that they should report on their neighbors—people who, prior to 9/11, were viewed kindly and now in the shadow of the war on terrorism were to be viewed with mistrust and suspicion. Ganderton et al. (2004) argue that the threat advisory system of the DHS “is to create not a nation in perpetual fear, but one that is vigilant, aware and responsive”—but this has hardly been the case (p. 138). Instead, a culture of suspicion and angst has arisen, with more and more counter-culture groups like Antifa and BLM forming and asserting violent screeds that call for the violent overthrow of oppressive systems. These groups have emerged as a kind of homegrown blowback to the oversight and cultivation of a climate of fear under the DHS. One would be forgiven for thinking that this had been the aim of the DHS all along, as it now served to keep the military industrial security complex well oiled with taxpayer dollars for the foreseeable future as a result of its engagement with the homeland.
Counter-Argument
The counter-argument is that in spite of the DHS’s flaw system and its failure to earn a seat at the intelligence community’s table, the organization does serve a public purpose, which can reach beyond the immediate sphere of terrorism. Border control issues, FEMA, and the response to domestic emergencies all fall within its purview. DHS thus plays an important role in securing the country from internal and external attack simply by serving as another organization with assets across the country and abroad that are engaged in identifying threats, preventing attacks, informing the public, preparing alerts, and developing plans and strategies that can be implemented in the face of an emergency situation. States work together with federal agents and FEMA under the DHS has developed collaborative strategies with state, regional and local law enforcement and governmental leaders to have plans ready to put to use in the case of a variety of incidences that require the combined attention of state and federal authorities at the scene. For this reason, the DHS is an integral part of the government infrastructure in the 21st century.
Rebuttal
This counter-argument makes a number of assumptions that should be addressed: first, it assumes that the plans developed and put into use by the DHS, FEMA and state, regional and local authorities could not have been developed on their own or serve as a significant improvement over what was in place before. As Gunlock (2009) shows, there is ample and “rich anecdotal evidence of states wasting DHS grant money” (p. 6)—another indication that the Department of Homeland Security is plays a bigger role in funneling money to private contractors and cronies than it does in actually combating terrorism or securing the nation. Some of the examples provided by Gunlock (2009, p. 6) include:
· In 2005, Montgomery County, Maryland used $16,000 in DHS Urban Area Security Initiative funding to purchase eight large screen plasma television monitors.
· In 2005, Columbus, Ohio spent $7,000 of DHS Urban Area Security Initiative funding to purchase eleven bullet-proof vests for police and fire department dogs.
· In 2005, South Dakota spent nearly $30,000 in DHS State Homeland Security Grant funding for an on-site paging system to be used at the South Dakota State Agriculture Fair.
· In 2004, the small Texas town of Madisonville, Texas (pop. 4,159) used $30,000 in State Homeland Security Grant funding to purchase a custom trailer to be used during the town’s annual October Mushroom Festival “as a place where people can go if they get overheated or get lost or injure themselves.”
· In 2003, Lake County, Indiana used $30,000 in State Homeland Security Grant funds to purchase a truck ostensibly to tow hazmat disposal trailers. Instead, the truck was used by a state employee to commute to work.
· In 2004, Converse, Texas spent $3,000 in State Homeland Security Grant funding for a trailer used to transport lawnmowers to a city function called the “Lawnmower Drag Races.”
While these amounts do not add up to the lucrative contracts and billions awarded contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, they do indicate that as has often been the case with federal funds, when it comes to amounts provided to regional players by the DHS the same old story remains true—there is no malfeasance like governmental malfeasance.
The point is that the DHS engages in the dispersal of taxpayer funds in ways that do not measure up to the mandate of the organization: there is little accountability (typical of most federal organizations) and it is but one more added to the ever growing heap of federal agencies that purports to have a strategy to address a specific situation but that at the end of the day appears simply to be good at allocating funds in meaningless or superfluous ways. As Gunlock states: “It is clear that the system now in place does not efficiently encourage better preparedness for the states. By continuing to appropriate more and more money each year regardless of how past funds have been spent, Congress discourages states from accurately measuring risk and making progress toward the development of strong state-based homeland security programs that match that risk. In addition, Congress is once again wasting taxpayers’ money” (p. 6). By allowing DHS to continue to function in its current state, the federal government actually does a disservice to taxpayers who entrust the government with their monetary contributions to safeguarding and protecting American borders and interests.
Second Counter-Argument
DHS may show signs of wasting taxpayers’ money in some cases, but this hardly serves as proof that the organization as a whole is without merit. The homeland is safer with DHS on the job and this cannot be disputed. State and federal officers are more focused than ever on identifying and stopping terror activity.
Rebuttal
If this is true, some explanation for why attacks continue to occur. The recent assault on concert-goers in Las Vegas, the shooting up of a club in Orlando, or the massacre at the Florida high school all indicate that more needs to be done to address the domestic front and the culture that is creating an environment in which American citizens turn against one another for no clear motive whatsoever. If the DHS is going to fund anything, it should be funding state and regional services that can play more of an instrumental role in identifying local threats and preventing tragedies from occurring. At the federal level, officers with the DHS are too far removed from the everyday events and actors that play a part in the tragic consequences that stem from the kind of seemingly random outbursts of violence that plague the country’s landscape from time to time and place to place.
If the DHS itself in terms of continuing to have a mandate (in the same manner that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must justify its existence by locating a new threat to humankind every so many years, whether it is a new form of unstoppable influenza or the Zika virus) uses the phenomenon of domestic terrorism and mass shootings, this type of justification should at least bear positive fruit in terms of helping local authorities to be better prepared to prevent such atrocities form occurring. The reality appears to be, however, that the end result of DHS funding is that more and more taxpayer funds are funneled into the military industrial complex or wasted in needless and useless extravagances.
Conclusion
With ISIS defeated and the radical Islamic terrorist threat seemingly on the wane, a new form of domestic or homegrown terrorism appears to be emerging—one that is rooted in a Romantic struggle against the oppression of the totalitarianism represented by the federal government, according to Mantri (2011). While this may be so, the nature of the terrorism—the perpetrators’ ethnic background or specific ideological venom—is somewhat beside the point. The important thing for DHS is that there is a threat and that means the security state can continue and the flow of funds from taxpayers to the employers of some of Washington’s busiest lobbyists will continue unabated. As Gunlock (2009) states, the DHS in order to justify its existence needs to do more than point out to the public the threat level color: it needs to use the funding supplied it in a way that is effective and meaningful. It needs to provide more accountability and transparency to the public which has entrusted it with assisting in securing America’s borders, identifying terrorist threats, and neutralizing them. While it is unlikely that the war on terror is ever to be declared over—at least in the foreseeable future—the question of whether the DHS needs to continue is something that can fairly be asked. The specter of 9/11 still hovers over the U.S. but nearly two decades have passed since that attack—and one wonders if America’s interventions in the Middle East are making the U.S. more or less safe.

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