Sociological Structure of U.S. National Security After 9/11

Introduction: 9/11 and the Intelligence Community's Failures

The attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 revealed a stunning set of shortcomings both in terms of the nation's security and with respect to the reliability of its Intelligence Community. It has been a popular refrain that the breaches which exposed such cataclysmic failures in our national security system were accommodated by massive intelligence failings. In particular, this notion propagated the idea that the CIA and the FBI shared blame for declining to act on intelligence regarding a possible surge in terrorist activity. It was further determined that the very structure and culture of the Intelligence Community prevented these agencies from sharing information regarding such threats.

These were the notions that provided the foundation for the new — and as yet not fully effective — Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which still had several years of formation ahead of it before it could aspire to become the interwoven and dynamic agency that its designers had initially envisioned. This massive overhaul of the intelligence community was touted as revolutionary, initiating a new phase in the sociological structure of American security. This proved true both for the citizens of the United States and for those within the various agencies of the intelligence and security communities, who experienced in the wake of September 11th a genuine change in the social orientation of security policies, practices, and internal culture.

Formation of the Department of Homeland Security

The most fundamental driver of change in the social structure of U.S. security during this era was the formation of the Department of Homeland Security. Designed to function as an umbrella body under which 22 separate agencies would now be housed, it created a monumental challenge in terms of establishing the desired social impact to support information sharing, policy refinement, and the unification of intelligence and security best practices. The approach to security was met with significant criticism for the difficulty the DHS presented in streamlining its social structure.

Done in response to the view that certain social conditions — such as rigid separations between agencies and obsolescent modes of gathering intelligence — had contributed to the failures of 9/11, the creation of the agency was met with skepticism by some. Among them, one senator argued in 2002 that "simply moving agencies around among departments does not address the problems inside agencies like the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) — problems like outdated computers, hostility to employees who report problems, lapses in intelligence sharing . . . along with what many have termed 'cultural problems.'" (Ball, 48)

Cultural Dysfunction Within the New Security Structure

These institutional shortcomings were regarded as a primary cause of the lapses that allowed the 9/11 attacks, justifying a response that used the premise of a massive structural overhaul as a way of addressing conditions essentially social in nature. As a result, the sociological conditions by which one might describe the national security outlook in the United States became increasingly colored by the nature of bureaucracy. This invoked a number of social consequences within a security agency constituted of roughly 200,000 agents (Ball, 49).

According to Ball (2005), a core difficulty encountered in adapting the culture of this new agency was that many practical realities of the intelligence community remained unchanged. The fundamental failures in terms of hierarchy and modes of operation went unaltered and, in fact, experienced an intensified absence of direction as the DHS attempted to find its identity. Ball reports that a broad array of "government employees, working in two dozen federal agencies for decades, now find themselves in the DHS but doing precisely the same jobs, reporting to the same congressional committees, functioning and being evaluated according to the norms, traditions, customs — in short, the 'culture' — of their old agencies. The problem is compounded because the new department does not have a culture, does not have norms and standards for reporting." (Ball, 49) This is thus described as a problem of reporting, with agencies and agents suffering from an uncertainty about the true hierarchical structure of the broader community.

In addition to these massive changes in the structural form of the community — accompanied by little concentrated attention on addressing cultural needs — the focus of U.S. security shifted significantly. This was the experience of agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, which upon entering the purview of the DHS became a key player in shaping the security functions of the U.S. government. This changed one part of American society's direct relationship to the security community, with the average commercial flying experience increasingly impacted by the liberal application of surveillance authority for officials in airport contexts. For the TSA, the change in bureaucratic orientation did nothing less than alter its ability to impose security concerns upon the domestic population.

Conclusion: Unresolved Social Consequences

The focus of those responsible for the security and intelligence constructs of the United States directed attention to issues of terrorism in such a manner as to justify the integration and shifting of focus in an almost unilateral way. The outcome was the structuring of national security according to impulses that created favor for less inter-agency restriction and greater domestic surveillance. Ultimately, the greater issue is that these changes were attempted without either the aim of resolving internal cultural problems at individual agencies or the establishment of a clear and positive DHS culture to replace them.