ABSTRACT
As President George Bush stated in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States, “9/11 changed everything.” Although change occurred at all levels of American society, from heightened public anxiety about the prospect of new attacks to an aggressive foreign and military policy in the Middle East, perhaps the most significant change was in the area of homeland security wherein the government took numerous steps to ensure that an attack on the United States would never happen again. Strengthening homeland security occurred on a number of levels, some organizational and bureaucratic, others more intrusive and controversial. The Bush administration quickly went about creating a new cabinet level Department of Homeland Security, which sought to streamline the disparate sectors of intelligence gathering and protection of vital resources and
installations. The new department combined bureaucratic entities from twentytwo individual agencies, including the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Secret Service and Immigration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The secretary of Homeland Security (initially former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge) was given extraordinary access to the president and wide powers to put in place government assets that would be capable of meeting the growing global terrorist threat.1
