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Rules of Local Law Enforcement in Homeland Security

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Submitted By oleandra
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The Roles of Local Law Enforcement in Homeland Security Ever since the Terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001in New York City, the role of local law enforcement has drastically changed. On November 25, 2002 the Homeland Security Act (HSA) was signed into law by President George W Bush.” What the Homeland Security Act did was it helped to restructure law enforcement in the United States on the Federal level.
Before the Homeland Security Act, the Federal law enforcement fell under the Department of Justice. After HSA was enacted into law it split the Department of Justice into the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella "there are twenty two agencies and about 170,000 employees, all with functions related to homeland security." (Katz) While the development of this new Department of Homeland Security was a great goal, they just didn't have the available manpower to be able to distribute the men and women to protect all the trouble areas. This is one of the reasons why the role of local law enforcement is so vital to homeland security. The Federal agents and the local police departments work hand in hand to help each other cover the blind spots. One way that the Federal and local agencies work together is through the sharing of information. Through investigations and the cyber crimes divisions, any information that is gathered is available to the organizations to help with any open investigations or cold cases that the information might pertain to. In the past the dissemination of information went only one way, from the locals to the Feds. Today with all of these information sharing laws and acts that are being passed, as much as the Feds know the Locals know.
Also, local law enforcement agencies can advance through working with homeland security by having federal

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