On September 11th, 2001 The United States of America had been attacked by terrorists. They killed more than 3,000 U.S. citizens. The United States was unprepared on how to deal with such an attack. The attack on New York's World Trade Center has been name the worst terror attack in U.S. history. After these terror attacks the Homeland Security Act of 2002 was developed. "The primary mission of the Homeland Security Act is to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States; reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism; and minimize the damage, and assist in the recovery, from terrorist attacks that do occur within the United States."1 Inside the Homeland Security Act it states the secretary of Homeland Security now has the authority and the power to direct and control investigations of terrorism and how to prevent terrorism. In 2002 the Homeland Security Act was created along with the US Department of Homeland Security. Many organizations made up this US Department of Homeland Security such as the US Coast Guard, the US Secret Service, and the Transportation Security Administration. The Department was given billions of dollars and approximately 180,000 new federal employees. The US Department of Homeland Security has a very similar mission as the Homeland Security Act. "The mission is to ensure the safety and security of the United States from terrorist attacks and other disasters."2 The main purpose is to help prevent terrorism; the US Department of Homeland Security created the National Threat Advisory system. The was this system works is it is color coded. Green=low threat to Red=severe threat. This color coded system was put into place to help lower the impact on future terrorist attacks. Another responsibility of the US Department of Homeland Security is natural disasters such as hurricane and earthquakes. An organization that we are familiar with, living close to the Gulf of Mexico, is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA is responsible for helping to rebuild communities, provides essentials needs like food and shelter, provide temporary housing, etc. FEMA performed very poorly in 2005 when hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Since then it has been reorganized to help the organization be more prepared to handle large sized catastrophes. Since September 11th, 2001 the US Department of Homeland Security has spent roughly $791 billion dollars. That is an incredibly large amount. The US Department of Homeland Security gets a lot of negative attention about where all the money goes. Even though we have not had another large terror attack as 9/11 we have had the Boston Bombings, and numerous other small terror attacks in the United States. FEMA also has a very large budget but it is one of the poorly organized departments inside the Department of Homeland Security; where as a much lower amount was given to the counterterrorism programs in the Department of Homeland Security. Another organization inside the US Department of Homeland Security is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The TSA is another organization that receives a lot of negative comments. For example the airport security dogs can either sniff explosives or drugs but not both. It is easier to train the dogs to sniff drugs. So in our airports what are the majority of dogs? Drug sniffing dogs. Don't you think it would be more efficient to have more of the explosive sniffing dogs. This is just a smaller issue. There are countless personal encounters from the TSA from air travelers that have been just horrific. I was traveling with a 3 week old infant and they striped her down completely naked and bomb swabbed her all over including her private areas, but to be politically correct it is now frown a pawn to profile and search people wearing full garb. This is an organization I definitely hear and see more bad than good. Another large task the US Department of Homeland Security takes on is the immigration reform. Recently we have see how bad our immigrations policies are. Thousand of illegal immigrants came over our borders summer of 2014. They were placed in facilities and given clothes food and medical care on the tax payers dime. Then they were shipped all over the US spreading a dangerous virus. Even though they were not linked officially all the places these illegal immigrants were sent the virus popped up. This is a complicated area. Our boarders need to be secure. As the Department of Homeland Security they should be worrying about terrorist groups coming across our wide open Mexican borders, but everyone wants to be politically correct so they do not hurt anyone's feeling and they can get the illegal's vote once they are made legal. America is the place where dreams come true, but there is a right and wrong way and just giving people citizenship is wrong. It is not protecting the rest of America. The Homeland Security Department used over $41 million for charter flights for the illegal immigrants to be sent all over the country. That is another example of government waste on the taxpayers dime. This issue has yet to be resolved. The US Department of Homeland Security has a long way to go. Some of the goals for the future are keeping up with the pace of technology, improving the pace of travelers while increasing security, working on protecting the US from cyber attacks as technology grows, and working on improving risk management and analysis. These ideas were developed by the Homeland Security Enterprise (HSE). This is a group of outside agencies, federal, state, local, non-government, families, etc. who have one goal in mind-keeping America safe. This is going to be a challenge with all the new threats coming to face including cyber, nuclear, and others we don't know of yet along with keeping the budget under control. Overall I do think President Bush had a great concept of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and creating the US Department of Homeland Security. The United States need a program like this to help protect us. I do think since the president had to act so fast with the huge tragedy of 9/11on everyone's mind there were some holes in the Act and in the Department of Homeland Security. I think if the government reevaluated what the current threats to the US are today and what the US needs now that it would improve the system and decrease the budget. Also, it might make Americans feel safer and overall happier with the Department of Homeland Security.

References
1. "Homeland Security Act of 2002." Public Law 107-296, November 25, 2002.Available online atwww.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/hr_5005_enr.pdf 2. AllGov. Everything our Government Really Does. Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved from: http://www.allgov.com/departments/department-of-homeland- security?detailsDepartmentID=571 Can Homeland Security Plan Make Us Safe? (by Micahel E. O’Hanlon and Peter R. Orszag, Los Angeles Times) Homeland Security Grant Reform: Congressional Inaction Must End (by James Jay Carafano and Jamie Metzl, Heritage Foundation) Kramer and Hellman. February 28, 2013. The Nation. 'Homeland Security':The Trillion Dollar Concept That No One Can Define. Retrieved from: http://www.thenation.com/article/173131/homeland-security-trillion-dollar-concept-no- one-can-define