The creation of the Office of Homeland Security, a department in the executive branch of the federal government, occurred less than four weeks
after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Its charge was to protect
the United States from terrorist attacks and to respond to natural disasters.
The Office of Homeland Security shares information and coordinates the activities and resources of more than twenty-two different government agencies involved in security and counterterrorism that previously had reported to many different departments. They included such
departments as the Customs Service, the Secret Service (both of which
had previously been part of the Treasury Department), the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA; an independent agency), the
U.S. Coast Guard (which had been part of the Transportation
Department), and later the Immigration and Naturalization Service
(originally part of the Justice Department).
The director of the Office of Homeland Security has the title of assistant to the president for Homeland Security, similar to the official title
of the national security advisor (assistant to the president for National
Security). The Homeland Security Council’s members include the president, vice president, and several cabinet-level officials. In the first decade
of the twenty-first century, the Office of Homeland Securities had a staff
of about two hundred thousand employees. The reorganization of government agencies to create it was the biggest government restructuring
in more than forty years.
In its first few years, some of the Office of Homeland Security’s best
known initiatives were the color-coded terrorist threat alerts, enhanced
security systems in airports, and the rescue efforts after Hurricane
Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and flooded large areas of Mississippi and Louisiana, including the city of New Orleans.