The United States National Security Agency

The NSA is the National Security Agency. This is a government agency tasked with monitoring, collecting, and processing information from all around the globe. The NSA uses this information to keep track of the whereabouts of people of interest for the United States, and they use it to determine what action needs to be taken to protect the US. This includes spying on allies of the United States, such as Germany, France, the UK, and other nations around the world. However, they also have been proven to be spying on not only the US’s allies, but also, its own citizens.

Whether it is calling someone on your phone or online shopping on the computer, people are more connected than ever to the internet. However, a person might be oblivious to the fact that they are being watched using these technologies. The NSA (National Security Agency) is an intelligence organization for the U.S. to protect information systems and foreign intelligence information. Recently the NSA has been accused of invading personal privacy through web encryption, tracking, and using personal information for their own uses and without permission. The surveillance of the NSA produces unlawful invasion of privacy causing an unsecure nation.

Over the past few years, government surveillance in the United States has become a widely debated issue with two completely different sides. The National Security Agency, a government agency known for it’s efforts in spying and surveillance, has been at the center of this issue since it’s founding in the 1950’s. The Cold War had just begun and the United States government was doing anything they could to find potential terrorists and communists. In fact, many famous people including Einstein were being spied on by the government to find citizens with potential ties to the Soviet Union. (New York Times - New Details Emerge from the Einstein Files; How the FBI Tracked His Phone Calls and His Trash) As the cold war came to an end in the early 90’s, NSA spying seemed to come to an end as well.

On September 11, 2001, there were 2,996 casualties and more than 6,000 others were injured in the terroristic attacks of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Some may say that these acts of terrorism changed the American homeland security for the better, others disagree. Since the events of September 11, 2001, the Department of Homeland Security was created and expanded into one of the largest divisions of the federal government. This paper consists of the lack of homeland security before September 11, 2001, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the development of this department, which is leading America to be safer since the last act of terrorism.

The Department of Homeland Security was formed in the face of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as part of a nationwide effort to protect the U.S. against terrorism. This department became the third largest federal department in the United States; compose of 22 different federal agencies each with a function with the same objective. The goal of the Department of Homeland Security is to have a singular department with a shared vision, and integrated results-based operations. The federal agencies of DHS include: The U.S. Customs Service, The Immigration and Naturalization Service, The Federal Protective Service, The Transportation Security Administration, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Office for Domestic Preparedness, The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Strategic National Stockpile and the National Disaster Medical System, Nuclear Incident Response Team, Domestic Emergency Support Teams, National Domestic Preparedness Office, CBRN Countermeasures Programs, Environmental Measurements Laboratory, National BW Defense Analysis Center, Plum Island Animal Disease Center, Federal Computer Incident Response, National Communications System, National Infrastructure Protection, Energy Security and Assurance Program, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Secret Service (www.dhs.gov/creation-department-homeland-security). Via the passage of the Homeland Security Act by Congress in November 2002, the Department of Homeland Security officially

Since the attack on the United States of America on 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established to aid the country in preventing such a horrific event or future threats from happening to the citizens. DHS has had a clean record so far and it seems to be doing a great job in deterring the terrorist’s threats from reaching the American population. There has been no serious terror attack on the United States soil since the establishing of DHS. This is not an easy feat since there are so many rules and agencies that feed intelligence, support, equipment, and personnel to this large department. To have coordination of over twenty-two agencies and ensure they are all working together is a task that may seem impossible but it is one that DHS has hit upon head-on. All the agencies must be aware of the intelligence and actions and risks that are prevalent so as to prepare themselves. Then the next hurdle is to gather intelligence and information from the citizens without violating the Patriot Act which protects the rights of the people. There is a fine line that must be monitored and not crossed in fear of interfering on someone’s rights. In some instances the people will not comply with DHS and therefore they receive a negative aspect from the population. If DHS is not able to gather intelligence from the people without infringing on their rights, what makes them so sure that the department will protect them?

The events of September 11th, 2001 forever changed the organizational make-up of Emergency Management. Prior to 9/11, FEMA was the premier organization in the United States that dealt with any sort of disaster management. While FEMA was not without its own particular struggles early on, it had grown into an effective program; often emulated by other Governments for its effectiveness. As the primary Emergency Management function for the United States it was afforded a cabinet level position; thus allowing direct access to the President (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). Functioning as its own entity, FEMA was also able to spend its money as they saw fit, develop its own hierarchy, and most importantly; decide which natural disasters/emergencies to focus a majority of their resources on. Unfortunately for FEMA all of that was lost with the creation of The Department of Homeland Security (DHS). According to (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011), “In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when the Department of Homeland Security was established and FEMA lost its status as an independent agency, emergency management became a minor player” (p. 343). The shift from a focus on natural disasters, to a focus on terrorism has been detrimental for FEMA. First and foremost, FEMA lost its cabinet position and the direct line to the President that it was afforded. While funding was accelerated to DHS in quantities never before seen in emergency management, FEMA, being a subordinate of

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) covers a variety of topics including: academic engagement, border security, citizenship and immigration services, civil rights and civil liberties, cybersecurity, disasters, economic security, homeland security enterprise, human trafficking, immigration enforcement, international engagement, working with law enforcement, preventing terrorism, and transportation security (Homeland Security, g). DHS works with all law enforcement partners at federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels. In these partnerships, communication and information sharing are a focus as well as have better resources and support (i.e. grants and training), and improve analytic capabilities to address threats (Homeland Security, f).

On June 6, 2013, The Guardian published a story about the National Security Agency's (NSA) secret Internet surveillance program, PRISM (Greenwald and MacAskill 2013). The story was based on documents leaked by one of the most successful whistle-blowers in American history, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents that Snowden has released up to this time have shown the NSA to be heavily engaged in the collection of personal Internet activity, bulk collection of telephone "metadata," and other forms of surveillance that have brought U.S. intelligence practices into question.

Upon analyzing 9/11 it was clear to focus on the limitations that the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Central Intelligence Agency had faced. Security breaches and poor intelligence sharing were just some of the critical failures that were encountered. Moreover, the main focus is pointed towards the miscommunication between these two agencies. Evidently, the execution and tactical strategies went unnoticed despite the apparent red flags that presented themselves, in addition to the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Central Intelligence Agency failure to pursue threats and establish a baseline of security resulted in the disaster of 9/11. In conjunction to these mistakes, the restriction of shared information

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a unique government agency that employs intensive research and immediate actions to solve issues that the general police cannot settle themselves (Quick Facts). The FBI’s today mission statement is “to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners” (Quick Facts). Today, the organization focuses on certain threats that requires strategic intelligence to protect our nation, threats like terrorism, foreign intelligence operations and espionage, technology-based crimes, criminal

An example of a bureaucracy would be the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI has special agents of different origin like cyber crime, bank fraud, homicide, human and drug trafficking, in addition to forensic psychologists, psychiatrists and biologists. The agents with the most time in the bureau have higher positions, with director of FBI being the highest of this government agency. The director of the FBI has a massive amount of responsibility because he receives orders from the President of the U.S. and is chosen to address the press.

The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) in the United States has been involved in several operations with drug trafficking. Some of these reports claim that the evidence of the Congress indicates that the CIA worked with groups that were known to be involved in drug trafficking. The deals mainly include providing the CIA with useful information and support material, in exchange for allowing their criminal activities to continue, and impede or prevent the arrest, prosecution and imprisonment from United States law enforcement agencies. This "war on drugs" was used as an easy way to increase repression in inner cities and confiscate millions of dollars in private assets through unconstitutional forfeiture laws. These assets were used to fund police burgeoning, and as an active participant in the illegal drug trade, public resources were used to bring heroin and cocaine into American inner cities since the 1960 's.

You’re constantly being watched over and protected, the NSA collects the data from over 75,000 people daily. The NSA, or National Security Agency, is responsible for collecting and monitoring all this data that they gather. They collect all this data to help the government as they are a government agency. They truly do help the United States by monitoring this data to help protect the citizens, but still people find a way to oppose it. Even though it might violate people 's right to privacy, the NSA helps protect citizens with their ability to collect and search through large amounts of data, and using this information from to prevent possible attacks on the United states from actually happening.

Born June 21, 1983, Edward Snowden was just a 29-year-old contractor for the NSA when he happened across the information (Harding, 2014). Acting on his morals and beliefs, he moved to educate the American public on their government’s activities. His decision to do so impacted the way the nation viewed government surveillance in the years to come.