After 9/11, it became apparent the entities that are supposed to protect and defend our nation did
not have the right procedures in place for doing so. God had to lift our nation back up and
provide a multitude of resources for us to see how we could proceed and emerge stronger than
ever. “Behold, I will bring it health and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them the
abundance of peace and truth.” (New King James Version Bible, 1982, Jeremiah 33:6).
One of the main concerns for homeland security how the public will perceive and react to the
means by which our nation’s safety and security are preserved. This can be detrimental to the
success of protecting a nation. Often times, different agencies use new emerging technologies to
stop crime and track suspicious activity. For example, border checkpoints make use of facial
recognition technology. Many citizens may feel this is an invasion of privacy, but others may
welcome the use of such devices for the protection of the nation. In addition, when new
technology is employed and it fails, it causes issues in public trust. For our nation to be safe and
secure, both the government and its citizens must find a mutual understanding of one another.
The government should be transparent regarding the technology being used to protect their
citizens. Finding out citizens are being spied upon is not necessarily a valuable appearance for
the government. However, citizens must understand, for the security of our homeland, they
cannot know everything. If everyone knew everything, then our nation would never be protected.
Homeland security is multifaceted. It is charged with the coordination of activities of several
operational and support components. This includes protecting the nation from natural disasters,
terrorism, security threats in cyberspace, border security threats, infringements upon election
security, and so much more (Department of Homeland Security, 2022). What I find the most
interesting about homeland security is the procedures created for economic security. This
requires working with private institutions such as banks to stop money laundering, cash
smuggling, mass-marketing fraud, and counterfeiting (Department of Homeland Security, 2022).
Additionally, homeland security detects weaknesses within the nation’s financial and trade
sectors to mitigate exploitation by criminal networks or other varieties of natural crises
(Department of Homeland Security, 2022). The network that is created to protect our nation is
incredible. The cooperation of agencies to stop any harm to the economic infrastructure is
essential for the prosperity of the global market. Agencies track manufactured harm such as
terrorism or criminal activities. Unfortunately, environmental factors may not always be readily
identified or prevented. For instance, no one would have ever imagined how COVID-19 could
affect the market as it did. The virus was the downfall of many businesses and caused a lot of
uncertainty in the marketplace.
In order to fully safeguard this nation, homeland security has come to be comprised of many
stakeholders. It incorporates different governmental entities, military, law enforcement, and
emergency response personnel (Nemeth, 2017). In addition, citizens of the nation are a vital
piece to homeland security. The mission of homeland security is to be a unified front for
maintaining homeland safety and security (Nemeth, 2017). This is why the responsibility of each
agent is everchanging. Threats to homeland security evolve quickly, and with that, so do the
responsibilities. The role of citizens is to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity: “see
something, say something”. They are the first to employ a line of questioning on if something
should be reported. Law enforcement, military, and many governmental agencies are similarly
responsible for being vigilant, but are also tasked with investigating any suspicious activity or
reports of potential harm to our nation. These agencies must cooperate and communicate to
create the best plan for identifying vulnerabilities of the nation and preventing potential natural
and man-made crises. Furthermore, they work with emergency response personnel to respond to
assaults on the nation, assisting in recovery to minimizing casualties and injuries.
Job 11:18 (New King James Version Bible, 1982) states, “And you will be secure, because there
is hope; Yes, you would dig around you, and take your rest in safety.” This verse is important to
remember. Many people speak about how we are no longer one country; however, we are
protecting the same thing: our nation and society. There is hope for our nation to be secure, but it
will require the entirety of the proverbial village to be vigilant. The effectiveness and efficiency
of the security of our homeland is based upon how well our government can conduct
counterterrorism and counterintelligence. The only way for this to be successful is for all
stakeholders to successfully complete their role and contribute to getting information, before
sharing it with one another. This in turn means, we must stay as one nation and work together,
not against each other.
References
Department of Homeland Security. (2022). Topics. Topics | Homeland Security. Retrieved June
20, 2022, from https://www.dhs.gov/topics
Nemeth, C. P. (2017). Homeland security: An introduction to principles and practices (3rd ed.).
Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis (CRC Press). ISBN: 9781498749091.
New King James Version Bible. (1982). Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Israel,
You make many valid points on the efficiency and efficacy of homeland security. There is
certainly much to improve upon when it comes to preventing domestic terrorism in our nation.
Additionally, homeland security does not always properly prioritize vigilance over
environmental threats. In 2015, the Inspector General urged the Department of Homeland
Security to be far more efficient in resources when it comes to infrastructure protection (Nemeth,
2017). Threats such as global warming, hurricanes, wildfires, and many more should be better
planned for; these threats are exceedingly detrimental to a nation’s infrastructure. Individual
departments of the government have taken decidedly more adequate initiatives to prioritize
climate, but those efforts have not been coordinated across all wings of the government, meaning
there is still a lack of a unified national or global effort (Climate Security, 2019). Often times, it
is not until a cataclysmic event or until the public brings attention to an issue that the government
produces policy changes. Unfortunately, these reforms frequently fail to actually resolve the
issue, instead giving the public just a vague feeling of some form of change. Then, when another
event occurs the nation is shocked the new reforms did not prevent or mitigate these threats
effectively. Resulting only in the vicious circle restarting all over again via public outrage. In
decades of this occurring, there has always been a responsible party aware of the risks and
ideally the consequences, but such has never guaranteed failsafe, preventative action or
appropriate recourse. In circumstances such as natural events, the main priority to ensure the
safety of the nation is to ask “what could happen” before the event occurs versus a “what
happened” after the fact.
References
Nemeth, C. P. (2017). Homeland security: An introduction to principles and practices (3rd ed.).
Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis (CRC Press). ISBN: 9781498749091.
Climate Security: A Pre-Mortem Approach to a Sustainable Global Future. (2019). Homeland
Security Affairs
Glendy,
Your concerns are valid. Many departments around the country are finding it difficult to find and
keep qualified applicants. When looking on government job websites, there are similar findings
across the board. Those entering the workforce are looking for job security and pay they feel is
equal to their job’s duties (Riccucci, 2018). Unfortunately, police work is no longer satisfying
either one of those requirements. Interestingly enough, this is not a new problem. In the 1960’s,
the government had to provide incentives to colleges to create criminal justice courses to
increase the motivation in joining the criminal justice field (Cunningham et al., 2020). Due to
these incentives, criminal justice degree programs have been created all over the nation,
producing over 60,000 Bachelors of Criminal Justice graduates annually (Stringer et al., 2020).
However, even though many pursue their bachelor’s degrees in criminal justice, many are not
following a career path in law enforcement because of the current environment the field finds
itself in. I believe we may need to look at options just as the government did in the 60’s. In
personal experience, I received a degree in criminal justice; I believe there should be more
substance to the course load. For instance, requiring students to receive a set amount of shadow
hours for different parts of the criminal justice field: working in a law firm, police department,
correctional facility, and so on. This would better prepare students to know what they could do
after college and hopefully make individuals better equipped and qualified to join law
enforcement.
References
Stringer, E. C., & Murphy, J. (2020). Major decisions and career attractiveness among criminal
justice students. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 31(4), 523–541.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2020.1814829
Riccucci, N. (2018). Generational Differences and the Public Sector Workforce. In Public
Personnel Management: Current concerns, future challenges (pp. 50–75). essay, Routledge,
Taylor & Francis Group.
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