Lecturer Testifies Before Senate on Homeland Security

Elaine Kamarck, a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, testified yesterday before a U.S. Senate committee to promote the creation of the Department of National Homeland Security.

The new federal department would seek to protect the U.S. from terrorist threats in the wake of Sept. 11.

Yesterday’s hearing before the Senate’s Committee on Governmental Affairs was one of several preliminary ones held before committee members write a formal bill establishing the department. Only a draft of the bill currently exists.

According to Kamarck, a former senior policy adviser to Vice President Al Gore ’69, the department would be designed to combat all forms of terrorism, including biochemical and nuclear threats.

Kamarck’s testimony focused on the importance of coordinating information among government agencies that deal with border control.

“Even before September 11, it was clear that there was significant weakness on our borders, too many agencies not connected with each other,” Kamarck said in an interview following the hearing.

The proposed bill would create the new department by merging the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Border Patrol and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“The formation of a Department of Homeland Security requires a major restructuring of the federal government’s public safety-related responsibilities,” said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) in a statement to open yesterday’s hearing. “I know this will not be easy...We need such a change now to help us fight and win the war against terrorism, at home and abroad.”

Kamarck explained the reasons why the effort to protect the American homeland needed such a significant reconstruction of the government.

“Most of these agencies deal with borders, people and things coming in and out of the United States,” Kamarck said. “The problem is that we don’t have the intelligence branch section of the government coordinated to work with the agencies at the border.”

While the bill’s draft also addresses the importance of protecting the country from cyber-terrorism, Kamarck said monitoring America’s physical borders is most critical to prevent terrorism.

During the hearing, Kamarck said that “homeland defense will not happen in the White House or in a coordinating council. It will happen on our borders or before our borders when consular officers, customs agents, INS agents, coast guard personnel and airport security officers, acting on intelligence gathered here or abroad, manage to stop, deter or prevent terror.”

Kamarck said she thinks most members of Congress supports forming the new department but said it is too soon to predict if a formal bill will be successful.

Despite Kamarck’s support for the plan, she warned the Senate committee that not to expect to an easy solution to terrorism.

“Homeland defense cannot be dealt with in a single agency,” Kamarck said. “The problem itself is simply too big. Homeland defense requires reinventing hundreds of federal, state and local agencies by adding new missions to their ongoing missions.”