ABSTRACT
On August 15, 2002, 11 months after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security, President George W. Bush chose Mt. Rushmore as a dramatic and profoundly symbolic setting to further his plan to construct new Department of Homeland Security, the reorganization of the US government since 1947 National Security Act. According to the President's proposal, aside from coordination of homeland security efforts on federal, state and local level and with private and public agencies, the department was to have four primary tasks: information analysis and infrastructure protection; development of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and related countermeasures; provision of border and transportation security; and, finally, emergency preparedness and response. The making and unmaking of the White House authority -within and outside of the United States - force people, therefore, to think about categories of sovereignty, imperialism and hegemony not just as political, economic or military practices but also as representational ones.
