Description
For this assignment, write an essay that addresses the prompts below.
- Explain how homeland security policy has developed from 2001 to the present time.
- Describe the role of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 (HSPD-5) and HSPD-8 in the evolution of homeland security strategies.
- Compare and contrast two of the homeland security strategies discussed in Chapter 6 and Chapter 8 (Aviation and Maritime Security and Administrative Records).
- Discuss how these strategies have affected counterterrorism.
- AVIATION AND MARITIME SECURITY- The hijackings of airplanes in the 1970s and 1980s, and the attacks on airports in Rome, Vienna, and Karachi in the mid-1980s, prompted a series of aviation and security-related laws. Section 1115 of the Federal Aviation Act allows the President to suspend air transportation between the United States and any foreign state that acts “in a manner inconsistent” with the antihijacking convention of The Hague (1970); or permits territory under its juris-diction to be used by terrorists for operations, training, or sanctuary; or arms, aids, and abets any terrorist organization that “knowingly uses the illegal seizure of aircraft or the threat thereof as an instrument of policy.” The President also is authorized to suspend air transportation between the United States and any country that maintains air service between itself and such a state. The United States has banned direct air service to Lebanon because of concerns about terrorist groups within anti-aircraft missile range of flights using Beirut’s international airport. After the hijacking of TWA 847 and other aircraft in the 1980s, Congress enacted Sec. 551 of the International Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985, which directs the Secretary of Transportation to inspect security at foreign airports with air links to the United States. Travel advisories are to be issued if the security is substandard and has not been sufficiently improved after airport authorities are given 90 days’ notice. Advisories have been issued for airports in cities such as Lagos and Athens. Typically, as in the above cities, the bans are lifted after the State Department Antiterrorism Training Assistance (ATA) program sends aviation security specialists overseas to help the local airport authorities improve their security. After the bombing of Pan Am 103 in December 1988 with plastic explosives concealed in a radio, an international convention was drafted to require explosives manufacturers to incorporate a detection chemical. About a dozen countries (including Czechoslovakia, which had manufactured the explosive, Semtex, used in the bombing of fl ight 103) cooperated to identify chemicals that could be mixed into various plastic explosives. The United States passed its implementing legislation as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA).10 One controversial provision of AEDPA required the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to impose the same security measures required of American carriers on foreign air carriers serving a U.S. airport. This entailed considerable negotiations, as some countries claimed that their own measures were equivalent, if not exactly identical. After the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, Congress added to the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of 198611 a pro-gram for protecting passenger liners against hijacking. This included developing International Maritime Organization security standards, inspecting U.S. and foreign ports, and issuing travel advisories against unsafe foreign ports. The Intelligence Reform Act passed in December 2004, contained a provision requiring that cruise ship crews and passengers be checked against a comprehensive, coordinated database containing information about known or suspected terrorists and their associates.
- ADMINISTRATIVE RECORD-While deliberating on AEDPA, some members of Congress, from both parties, expressed concern that groups might be designated FTOs for political reasons or with insufficient justification. The final legislation compromise required the Secretary of State to base the designations on a detailed administrative record that had to withstand scrutiny and could not be “arbitrary or capricious.” As noted above, the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury had to be consulted; also, a group was allowed to challenge its designation within 30 days in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Congress also stipulated that a designation would expire after two years unless renewed. A renewal entailed using the same procedure required for the initial designation—including a detailed administration record Because the administrative record was the sole basis for the review process, the Justice Department decided that it should be equivalent to a court brief. This proved to be a labor-intensive matter, especially as redesignations had to be automatically reviewed every two years. Preparing administrative records, even for groups that boasted of their terrorist activities, turned out to be time consuming and diverted government officials from other counterterrorism eff orts. Therefore, in 2003, the State Department Counterterrorism Office and Justice Department drafted amendments, which would extend the review requirements to a four–year period. The amendments first passed the House in 2003 and in early 2004, but the vehicle, the State Department Authorization bill, became bogged down in the Senate. Finally, as part of the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, Congress included an amendment extending the review period for all groups to five years, with a provision allowing for a designated group to seek a review every two years. The first designations were made in October 1997. As of late 2011, 49 groups are designated FTOs.19 Most of them were on the original list. Several groups have challenged their designations more than once, including the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization (MEK), an anti-Iranian government group that actively lobbies Congress and con-ducts an expensive public relations campaign, however U.S. courts have upheld these designations.
Your essay must be at least two pages in length, not counting the title page or references page. You should have at least two sources on the references page. Adhere to APA Style when constructing this assignment, including in-text citations and references for all sources that are used. Please note that no abstract is needed.
Remember, websites such as Wikipedia, e-how.com, history.com, howthingswork.com, and other similar sources are not scholarly in nature and may not be used for this assignment.
