On Monday, President George W. Bush signed the bill forming the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into law, ending six months of intense debate over the shape of organizational arrangements intended to protect America’s citizens against terrorist threats. The same day, the Bush administration submitted the reorganization plan that the legislation mandated to be presented within 60 days of the bill’s signing.
The plan lays out a series of steps for the establishment of the new department, with key dates being Jan. 24, 2003, the day the legislation takes effect; March 1, when most major agencies are transferred; and Sept. 30, when remaining agency and functions transfers are to be completed.
Key actions to be completed include:
Jan. 24, 2003:
— Establishing the Secretary of Homeland Security’s office. This is likely to be the date that Tom Ridge changes his title from director of the White House’s Office of Homeland Security to secretary of the new department
— Appointment of the deputy secretary, who has been named as Gordon England, currently Navy secretary, the four undersecretaries, only one of which, Asa Hutchinson, has currently been named, the assistant secretaries, and other senior officials of the new department
— Establishing international, state and local, and national capital region coordination offices within the secretary’s office
— Establishing the new Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency
— Establishing the new Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services which will take on many of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s functions.
March 1, 2003:
— Transfer of Coast Guard, Secret Service, Customs Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Transportation Security Agency to the new department
— Transfer of Commerce Department’s Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office and Defense Department’s National Communication System, as well as FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center to DHS, as well as some other computer system protection offices
— Transfer a number of nuclear, biological, and chemical defense efforts to the new department’s Directorate of Science and Technology.
— Transfer a number of medical arrangements, including the Metropolitan Medical Response System and 12 ready packages of pharmaceutical and medical supplies distributed nationwide from the Department of Health & Human Services to the
new department.
June 1, 2003:
— Plum Island Animal Disease Center to be transferred from the Department of Agriculture to DHS.
Sept. 30, 2003:
— All remaining personnel, assets, and liabilities to be transferred.
Debate over intelligence functions and personnel management matters continue, through the personnel machinery that will manage the new department is starting to take shape. A number of working groups have been formed within the Office of Personnel Management to examine the areas that Congress has granted the new department some relief from civil service rules: performance appraisals, job classifications, pay, labor management, discipline, and employee appeals. At the present time, though, it seems that intelligence going to the new department will be limited to already analyzed material, rather than raw data. Discussions are also underway as to whether Homeland Security personnel will become part of the multi-agency Joint Terrorism Task Forces; there are some indications that existing agencies are reluctant to cooperate to a great degree with the new department.
In a related development, the House and Senate Intelligence committees are set to release a report by Dec. 13 on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Among the expected recommendations, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, are both a new Cabinet level intelligence coordination post and a study into creating a new domestic intelligence agency, separate from the FBI. The study is reportedly to be due by January 2004.
Sources
Nicholas Kulish, “Cabinet-level Intelligence Post Weighed by House-Senate Panel,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9, 2002
www.whitehouse.gov, Department of Homeland Security Reorganization Plan, Nov. 25, 2002
Dan Eggen & John Mintz, “Homeland Security Won’t Have Diet of Raw Intelligence,” Washington Post, Dec. 6, 2002
Christopher Lee, “OPM Begins Sorting Security Personnel,” Washington Post, Dec. 9, 2002
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