9/11: Eight years onAnalyzing Congress's homeland security agenda

One way to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attack is to take a close look at Congress’s homeland security-related legislative agenda. Laws passed by Congress — and laws not passed — shape public policy, and how the U.S. government addresses homeland security issues and the priorities it sets are determined, to a large extent, by congressional action.

Jena Baker McNeill, James Jay Carafano, and Matt Mayer, in a Heritage Foundation report, offer a helpful analysis of Congress’s legislative agenda. The analysis is useful, even if it can be argued that some of the recommendations appear to be inspired more by Heritage’s conservative philosophy, which is perfectly legitimate, than by more narrowly defined security considerations. In the next article we comment on two these recommendations which, in our view, would benefit from a more balanced consideration of alternative approaches.

McNeill, Carafano, and Mayer that Congress should honor the memory of 9/11 solidifying its homeland security agenda. This means “taking the right steps to keep the nation safe, free, and prosperous. At the same time, legislators must resist dumb initiatives that add no security while impairing invaluable aspects of American life.”

Homeland security today
Terrorists are still determined to kill as many Americans as possible.

Since 9/11, more than 23 attacks have been publicly foiled. Much of this success is the result of legislation enacted after the 9/11 attacks — such as the PATRIOT Act and the Homeland Security Act. This legislation has paved the way for:

• Extensive information sharing between federal, state, and local law enforcement
• The creation of a world-class Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
• An ever-growing homeland security enterprise

Congress has also enacted or is considering homeland security measures which, in the authors’ view, have much in common with bumper st

ickers: cute phrasing but little substance. These measures should be rejected.

What Congress should not do
The authors argue that some of what Congress has done or plans to do fail to enhance security, protect individual freedoms and privacy, or allow America’s economy to grow and prosper. Here is what Congress should not do:

• Do not encourage illegal immigration. Congress has pushed forward several proposals which would encourage illegal immigration:
  • the DREAM Act (which would give education benefits to illegal immigrants)
  • the Ag JOBs Act (which would give amnesty to illegal agricultural workers).
  • Congress is also considering the PASS ID Act, which would roll back the REAL ID Act of 2005.

The authors say that Congress should instead just properly implement the existing REAL ID Act because doing so would prevent the kind of identity