Homeland Security

Homeland Security

Collection of intelligence within the United States is a critical process in an attempt to curb activities such as terrorism. This is by obtaining information about the operations of the different criminal groups and the activities of individual criminals, both inside and outside of the nation’s borders. It is critical to share the information with other security agencies as a proactive method of protecting the lives of the Americans.

According to section 203 of the PATRIOT Act, law enforcement personnel’s are allowed to share criminal related information with other security agencies that contains counterintelligence. Sharing of information is a progressive way of curbing crimes as different bodies are able to deal with different potential criminal activities (Duignan, 2001). Through this, cases of mistaken identities when it comes to commission of crimes are avoided thus excluding the innocent persons from paying for crimes they did not commit and especially in cases of terrorism.

Civil rights and individual liberties are respected by both the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The departments have a reputation of arraigning the war against terrorism at the same time safeguarding individual rights. For example no court in the recent past has found any kind of abuse of civil rights in the implementation of the PATRIOT Act.

Calls for the creation of a separate domestic intelligence agency is a weakness in intelligence collection and curbing terrorism. This discourages integration works in the fight against terrorism as intelligence officials and law enforcement officers must operate together in a coordinated manner and frantically share information regularly for the better good.

Civil rights and liberties of the American people will be at risk if a separate domestic intelligence body is created. The FBI have a good record of dealing with terrorist attacks at the same time protecting individual rights. Creation of another separate body therefore means individual rights will be prone to abuse which is a bad thing to the American people. Cases on violence or threats against individuals will be hard to convict as the new body will take some time to adopt to the current conditions and maintain efficiency in its operations.

After the 9/11 there was dire need to organize the intelligence community for effective joint intelligence work. Employing shared values and practices in reporting intelligence and training of experts and sharing of intelligence information needed to be effected to deal with the threat of terrorism which led to the use of the military in dealing with terrorism ( Jenkins, Liepman, & Willis, 2014). Use of military intervention has proven to be very successful in the fight against terrorism since the 9/11. The goal of military intervention has been to kill terrorists, disrupt their organizations and eradicate their capabilities to carry out terror activities.

Killing of terrorists and especially their leaders have proven to be very successful. For instance the assassination of the Al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden disoriented their operations as a result of lack of leadership ( Rollins, 2011). This allowed the US troops to further advance their attacks on the terror group leading to death of a significant number of them. Although this did not yield a permanent solution to the terror activities it acted as a proactive way that prevented terrorist attacks on other parts of the country considerably.

Military intervention has been a critical tool to support weak governments thus preventing terror groups from invading a territory making it their operational base. Airstrikes have been conducted in the recent past against terror groups such as the ISIS in countries such as Libya by the US in support of the Libyan government in an attempt to bring a state of order which has proven to be quite successful.

In conclusion, by any degree, the war on terrorism has been far attained but much more must be done to fully eradicate this social evil which is a threat to the existence of human race.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER

Homeland Security

Paper details
discussion one
Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. policy and laws on intelligence gathering
of U.S. citizens.
Does it matter how the information is collected?
Does it make a difference whether the person/persons/organization is suspected of
terrorist activity?
Discussion Two
What piece of law, executive order, presidential directive, or policy has had the greatest
impact on post-9/11 world? Support your answer.
Preferred language style US English