Quote

Since September 11th Congress has created the Department of Homeland Security, more than doubled the homeland security budget and implemented a bipartisan overhaul of our intelligence systems.

If the Pentagon truly confined itself to providing defense, then presumably we wouldn't need a whole separate government agency to provide 'Homeland Security.'

There are over 100 entities in the federal government that have something to do with homeland security.

When I was involved in the initial creation of the Department of Homeland Security, we were given a clear twofold mission. The first part of the mission was to secure our borders. The second was to maintain the free and efficient flow of commerce and people.

The other thing about FEMA, my understanding is that it was supposed to move into the Department of Homeland Security... and be what it was, but also having a lot of lateral communication with all those others involved in that issue of homeland security.

This Congress has promised all manner of border security and port security to the tune of billions of dollars... yet we have - to date - funded our promises for port security at only $900 million. That's quite a distance between what we say and what we actually do.

You know, one of the perceptions, again, about FEMA is that there's been a demise in the organization since it became the - under - it started to become part of the Department of Homeland Security.

The Department of Homeland Security is a strategic feel good measure. It's going to be the Department of Agriculture for the 21st century. TSA - thousands standing around.

In fact, in 2002, the Secretary of Defense authorized such support on a reimbursable basis to organizations formerly components of the Department of Justice and Department of the Treasury and currently components of the Department of Homeland Security.

Since the tragedies, the Department of Homeland Security was established to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, and most importantly, to share intelligence information among government agencies and departments.