Was the Department of Homeland Security a Bad Idea?
The establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not produced any appreciable homeland security gains. There is no evidence that the behemoth agency created following the 9/11 attacks has protected the nation from terrorism any better than the agencies that were already in place, such as the FBI and CIA.
Clearly, the 9/11 attacks revealed to the nation that the operating practices of the agencies charged with preventing terrorist attacks were flawed, especially in the area of interagency coordination and information sharing. There is no excuse for how many of the hijackers, some that were known to elements of the US government as potentially dangerous, were able to enter and remain in the US and operate with impunity.
I would argue however, that creating new bureaucratic structures and agencies were not as necessary as was changing the operating practices of the organizations then in existence. The FBI, CIA and the remainder of the alphabet soup of agencies in the intelligence and law enforcement community had the ability, resources, and talent to fight terrorism prior to 9/11. The trouble was they didn’t share information vital to the nations security. Statutes such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act created legal roadblocks, as did agency culture and leadership. This intelligence gap stood in the way of collaboration and information sharing which is necessary to properly deal with threats to the Homeland.
Independent agencies can become interdependent without the need for expensive and time-consuming mergers and consolidations. Mission clarity, cooperative culture, and legal authorities that support the mission can all be accomplished with competent and brave leadership. Separate agencies working toward a common objective can provide a system of checks and balances that prevent groupthink.
Did the 9/11 Commission say that new bureaucracies were essential? The 9/11 Commission Report did recommend the establishment of the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), but the bulk of the report was more focused on changing the way law enforcement and intelligence agencies operate, communicate, and cooperate.
The establishment of DHS was not, in and of itself, a flawed concept. Consolidating missions such as transportation security, border security and immigration under one umbrella is not necessarily a bad idea, and there were gaps in these systems prior to 9/11 that facilitated the attackers’ plans. There has been mission creep since the department’s original creation, however. A single department responsible for everything from counterterrorism to emergency preparedness and hazard mitigation evokes the adage, “jack of all trades, and master of none.” An organization competent in many skills, but not outstanding at any particular one, will have difficulty achieving its missions.
Mission creep often continues to the point of catastrophic failure. Could putting all of our homeland security eggs into a bloated and optimized DHS basket lead to self-organized criticality whereby the organization operates dangerously close to its tipping point?
It is unclear how the Department’s performance is measured. What metrics are in place to demonstrate that DHS budget dollars, which rose from $29 Billion in 2003 to $61 Billion in 2014, are producing a beneficial return? The following is a list of high-cost projects that were later cancelled without any measurable benefit to the taxpayers:
• Radiation Detectors: DHS spent $230 million over five years on radiation detectors for cargo containers before withdrawing the project as a failure in 2011. The GAO and NAS were highly critical of DHS’s handling of the project.
• Full-Body Scanners: TSA spent hundreds of millions of dollars installing and operating Rapiscan scanners at U.S. airports, but research by a team led by Keaton Mowery of University of California, San Diego, found that the scanners were easy for terrorists to foil. The machines were withdrawn in 2013, but a different type of body scanner is now widely used. Mueller and Stewart find that such scanners fail a cost-benefit analysis “quite comprehensively.” As for the TSA, it did not bother to perform a cost-benefit analysis of full-body scanners before rolling them out nationwide.
• SPOT Program: TSA spends about $230 million a year on the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program, which tries to catch terrorists by their suspicious behaviors in airports. In a 2012 report, GAO found that TSA “deployed SPOT nationwide before first determining whether there was a scientifically valid basis” for it. TSA also did not perform a cost-benefit analysis of SPOT. In a 2013 report, GAO found that there is little, if any, evidence that SPOT works, and recommended that the program be cancelled.
• High-Tech Border Control: CBP spent $1 billion on the SBInet virtual fence project for a 53-mile portion of the Arizona-Mexico border. The project, which involved video cameras, radar, sensors, and other technologies, was begun in 2006 and cancelled in 2011 as a failure. Another high-tech system for the Arizona border is now moving ahead, but its effectiveness is in doubt.
The mission of the Department of Homeland Security is overbroad and is destined to fail without a critical examination and realignment of its function. Continued mission creep will, if unabated, diminish the organization’s capacity to fulfill the primary function for which it was intended: to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States.
