The Efficacy Of Counterterrorism

While the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is one, centralized agency, securing the homeland involves the cooperation and collaboration of many, different agencies and organizations ranging from local law enforcement to national agencies such as the NSA, CIA, and FBI. Each of these agencies contributes to the development of homeland security intelligence. By carefully analyzing and commenting on the objectives, tasks, strengths, weaknesses, and roles of each agency, a larger picture emerges regarding the capabilities and limitation of intelligence in supporting homeland security efforts.

Terrorism has become a main threat to the peace and development in the U.S and the world as a whole. Past experiences of terrorism such as the September 11th attack in the United States has a created the need to have a functioning counters intelligence which will effectively deal with terrorism. However, for the counter intelligence to be effective, other basic functions have to be played out. The basic functions are collection and analysis. The other function is the execution of covert actions and the major role is the counterintelligence. The Intelligence agents combine all roles and place them under the umbrella of intelligence.

Using the concepts of security, terrorism and risk learnt in this unit, critically evaluate the record of global counter-terrorism measures since the 9/11 attacks.

Terrorist attacks generally take place on a larger scale given the political and ideological reasoning behind the attack. In most cases, state and federal law enforcement agencies take the lead on the investigation and response. However, with most attacks requiring detailed and thorough planning on all levels, local law enforcements agencies are essential to thwarting any potential acts of terror before they occur. The inclusion of these smaller agencies increases the level of preparedness and responsiveness to any potential threat while at the same time, benefiting both smaller and larger agencies.

The Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. is mandated to deal with terrorism problem that has a long history in the U.S. Terrorism has been a threat to U.S. security since the 1800. Terrorists continue to use powerful secret communication strategies and unexpected tools to achieve their intention in the U.S. soil. For example, the 9/11 terrorism attack that killed the highest number of American citizens in history succeeded because terrorist used hijacked passenger planes to perform the attack (Lutz and Lutz, 2013). Although the most notorious terrorism activity in the U.S. soil was performed by Islamic extremist, several other groups among them black militancy, anti-liberal, anti-government, Jewish extremist, fascist extremists, and Palestinian militancy among others have been reportedly caused a terrorist activity in the U.S. in the past and their continued existence still remain a major threat to the U.S. security (Lutz and Lutz, 2013). The counter-terrorism policy administered through the Bureau of Counterterrorism aims at partnering with local security agents, multilateral organizations, non-state actors and foreign governments to defeat local and global terrorism. The policy employs high level of coordinated strategies in securing international partnership to document and monitor and act appropriately to Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) as emerging organizations that coordinate international terrorist

Police officers and those who supervise and manage them are only as successful as the environment allows them to be. With regards to the intelligence function, law and policy, citizen support, resource availability, agency cooperation, political environments, and other elements of the environments in which departments operate are just some of the issues that determine the ability and successfulness of agencies to create a useful intelligence product (Carter, 2010). Some beneficial means of working with these issues include proper planning and research, opening avenues of communication and cooperation with other agencies, and training.

Although the Department of Homeland Security claims that its law enforcement partners at the local, state and tribal levels are the backbone of our nation’s domestic defense against terrorist attacks, these agencies do not possess the resources to identify and tract potential terrorists.

A huge wake up call for the whole world was the 9/11 attacks. So many people’s lives were changed or taken away when this disaster struck in the United States. Many people are scared for life because of what happened that day and it got them to thinking more seriously about how to prevent terrorism and how to treat terrorists or suspected terrorists.

In this article “How Safer Streets Can Thwart Terrorists” written by Yonah Freemark, educates us about multiple terrorist attacks that have occurred specifically in the New York area and how the state is working to develop a safer approach. In May of 2017 at Times Square a motorist drove through a large crowd killing one person and injuring many others. Had it not been for a three foot guarding rail, the motorist could have killed many more. Another attack like this happened previously where an average of sixteen pedestrians were killed and since then have doubled. New York is not only the victim of these kind of attacks; famous places like France, Netherlands, and London constantly have attacks like these happen.

September 11, 2001 was the day that changed global outlook on terrorist attacks and counterterrorist tactics. Terrorist can strike at any time and any given place affects anyone, simply spread fear in law abiding citizen’s world wide. Terrorist attacks on World Trade Center in New York City and Pentagon in Washington D.C., are big flow of miscommunication between federal agencies and incident such as terrorist attacks of 2001 should have not happened. Information and intelligence should have been shared among agencies such as Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Aviation Administration and other key agencies which work as first defense in countering the terrorism.

State and local law enforcement agencies face several challenges including the lack of resources, expertise, training, and funding to solve cyber crime. Of these problems, are the growing concerns of the local and state officials about the threats made relating to the protection of computer infrastructures at the federal level. Local officers are not having the capacity or understanding of computer crimes necessary to properly investigate offenses such as computer and electric crimes and fraud and theft crimes by digital technology. (Taylor, 2011) Having education and appropriate training is crucial in the investigation process to gain an upper hand in fighting digital crime. In addition, state and local law enforcement expressed concerns about resource constraints and apprehension regarding expertise and jurisdictional

The U.S. has almost 18,000 separate law enforcement agencies, roughly 16,000 of which are local. Of the remaining 2,000 agencies, the vast majority represent special jurisdictions (university police, transit police, park police, etc.), followed by state agencies, and lastly by federal non-military

It is still being debated whether or not this law is ethical. It is best to keep this law as it can neutralize entire terrorism organizations. It is still being debated whether or not this law is ethical. It is best to keep this law as it can neutralize entire terrorism organizations. It is still being debated whether or not this law is ethical.

In an instance when one’s life is challenged due to an unfortunate event, survival competence must be considered. In the case that a group of terrorist’s planted a nuclear device in a London apartment building, public security must come up with a plan that resolves the situation without causing a great amount of harm to the city. After monitoring the group of terrorist’s, the police decide to bring one of them in for questioning. They believe that the terrorist knows where and when the bomb will go off but if he refuses to talk or give any information, the terrorist attack will be a success and the bomb will go off. Since there is not enough time to evacuate the city, the police considers using a torturing technique that will force the

Instructs that for the purposes of this resolution, in accordance with the legal instruments related to the prevention and suppression of international terrorism made by the United Nations and regional bodies, an act will be regarded as a “terrorist act” whenever it is committed crossing one or more borders with the aim of achieving political goals through the dissemination of terror with the intent to influence beyond the immediate victim, and it is accompanied by one (1) major criteria, or by the concurrence of at least two (2) minor criteria: