SHUFFLING THE FEDERAL DECK

The proposed Department of Homeland Security fills a pressing need. As of right now, if you wanted to convene a meeting on border security, you would have to bring in representatives from the Transportation (Coast Guard,Transportation Security Admnistration), Justice (INS), Treasury (Customs) and Agriculture (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service). Simply scheduling such a meeting is a logisitical nightmare, let alone establishing a sustained, coordinated policy. This is a major improvement over the joke that has been the Office of Homeland Security. However, there are two pressing questions that remained to be answered.

Intelligence Sharing: The new proposed department has a ambitious agenda for intelligence analysis - it is designed to synthesize the various shards of information gained by the various intelligence agencies, and match them to a deep understanding of vulnerabilities in national infrastructure to be able to ascertain potential terror threats. The department, however, has no authority over the intelligence-gathering agencies. Rather, they will be "customers" of the CIA, FBI and NSA. Thus, as it stands right now, the proposed plan does nothing to address the maligncy of intelligence hoarding.

Enforcement: Similarly, the Department will have to rely on other agencies for enforcement purposes. These agencies will not always see eye-to-eye with Homeland Security's assessments. What if for example, the FBI drags its feet on investigating a Homeland Security lead? As it stands right now, there's nothing that Homeland Security can do about it.

Until these two issues get addressed, the new Department will be at best a partial solution.