Political Science

The Department of Homeland Security was created by the government with the aim to supervise the measures taken for the protection of the U.S. citizens. This paper will discuss the issues which the organization is responsible for, including the social and the judiciary ones. The operations of the Homeland Security cause the infringement of the civil liberties of the country while it also has the authority to access any personal information of any person. The paper provides recommendations on how to resolve the issues and how to make the organization more acceptable for the nation as a whole.

The Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002 after the approval of the proposal of President George W. Bush by the Senate. The creation of this organization came as the response to the September 11 attacks which exposed the weakness of the USA to the terrorist actions and the lack of a dedicated response unit. Hence, the Department of Homeland Security was created in November 2002, being the biggest governmental reorganization with different departments falling under the basic Homeland Security such as, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Emergency, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Transportation Security Administration (Perl, 2004). The basic functioning of the Department of Homeland Security is to protect the United States against terrorist attacks and to respond to natural disasters.

Since the scope of the organization is very broad, naturally it comes under scrutiny concerning social and judicial grounds, which include issues such as data-mining and the storage of data of every citizen, inefficiency and wastages causing it to become a burden on the tax payers money, and also for taking actions beyond the common laws making them an organization not directly accountable to the courts.

The Ethical and Social Justice Issues
The most obvious issue pertaining to the creation and functioning of the organization come from the level of independence that they receive. The Department of Homeland Security is stationed higher than the Federal Bureau of Investigation and even has the Secret Service reporting to it. This allows them to gain the free access to all the personal records of every citizen of the nation while also allowing them to access data stored by any other company. Legally, this is debatable as the data provided to institutions are usually meant to be for their benefit and not to be shared by any other organization or information seeker. However, the Homeland Security Department can easily bypass the civil liberties which anyone may have and gain access to the personal data. This issue is more formidable when the Homeland Security has the right to make preemptive arrests against people plotting against America even if they have committed no crime yet. Besides, the manipulation of the information is all up to the Homeland Security and if the information is not analyzed accurately, anyone can be convicted with the sources not to be even admissible under the laws of the judicial system (Gupta, 2002).

Another important issue which arises in this regard is the necessity of such an organization. The Homeland Security Department has roughly wasted 15 billion in failed contracts as of September 2008 (Hedgpeth, 2008). There is also the concern regarding the performance of the organization as the lack of support to the Hurricane Katrina victims has raised concerns as to the organizations effectiveness in dealing with natural disasters. The organization appears to be too costly to the people of the United States, considering the benefits that it brings.

The United States has a Secretive U.S. Court which was commissioned in 1978 to basically aid the government in legally approving wiretaps and black bag searches which would have been very difficult to get approval from in a regular court of law (Carlsen, 2001). This type of governmental actions is highly secretive and has been kept a secret from the U.S. population. People have the right to know what the government does as they are paying taxes and have voted for the government.

Rawls Theory and the Social and Justice Issues
Rawls theory of justice is a detailed theory which attempts to rationally understand the social ethics of the society and also discusses the concept called the veil of ignorance. The theory in short tries to understand the principles of justice created by the rational thought of a group of people living in the society who have a veil of ignorance, which is the concept presupposing that all people are equal and there is no separation based on race, wealth or status in society. However, the reason for discussing this society with respect to Homeland Security is because of the discussion of Rawls which talked about the individual liberty within a society (Adams, 2005).

The discussion in this regard is whether the actions of Homeland Security are justifiable by the society of rational thinkers. The lack of respect towards privacy of ones liberty is highly questionable as the main problem with our political thought is that if we see ourselves separately or is independents then we are painting a target on our back as we would be more intensely investigated (Kjos, 2003).

The social and judicial parameters that the Department of Homeland Security routinely abuses are an indicator as to the extent of social and legal degradation. The government has created a body which has stripped the nation of the individual liberty to do anything without informing the government first. The government is allowed to make preemptive arrests based on their suspicions and people must be careful of whatever they say or do, as it may be construed as an act of terrorism or violation against the nation, suppressing the independence which the United States is so proud to boast of.

The Justice Themes and the Homeland Security
The organization can be analyzed along the four justice themes, namely, the following Human Rights, Liberty, Equality, and Justice.

Human Rights
Human rights are violated on the ground that the freedom to speech and similar other vocal and exhibitionist freedoms have become highly questionable as they have become susceptible to the governmental observation and can become evidence for them. Courts have convicted people on the belief that they were about to commit terrorist attacks against the State. Similarly, by approving the U.S. Homeland Security Bill in 2002, they stripped immigrant children of rights while also making Civil Rights vulnerable (Human Rights Watch, 2002). Besides, agents routinely neglect the rights of people and this has led to numerous complaints to be filed against the organization. Yet no action has been taken in this regard.

Liberty
Civil liberties have been the worst affected through the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The organization has access to wiretapping people who they believe to be suspects and they can also make preemptive arrests. Arresting before any wrong has been committed is a highly debatable topic, but it still proves that the government has created a body which has an allowance to act as it pleases.

Equality
Since the organization views mostly external threats, immigrants and other multi-ethnic groups residing in the U.S. and with their roots abroad are treated differently by the organization as compared to the native citizens. The intensity of the actions taken by immigrants is treated as a matter of national security while citizens are allowed some level of freedom (however, if citizens have their biological roots in foreign countries, they are just as dangerous to the nation). Therefore, the treatment of Homeland Security destroys the belief that All men are created equal.

Justice
The judicial issues have been discussed in detail already, but as a summary, it can be concluded that the manner of justice dispensed by the organization is highly questionable, as the proof cannot be validated and the courts are sentencing people based on possibility of committing a crime rather than catching people in the act of committing crimes or once they have broken the law.

Major Challenges for Homeland Security
The major challenge lies in the lack of trust regarding the organization and the aura of doubt and misgivings it invokes among people and other governmental bodies. The Department of Homeland Security has created an image of a dubious organization which is even above the law. It has the right to convict people and take them to court based on misgivings or suspicion rather than based on authentic proof or records of criminal offenses. The trust deficit has led people to question just how far the government has authorized the organization to pry into the personal lives of citizens and to what extent the rights and liberties of people are safe. Voicing misgivings about the government and expressing opinions has become restricted as people are concerned that they might be misquoted or give any wrong impressions.

Another issue related to the organization is that it appears to be expendable, since its commemoration by not protecting the citizens or supporting them when natural disasters struck the nation nor has it helped in making Americans feel any safer than they did after the attacks in 2001. Thus, the organization seems simply a bully in the governmental arena, as it has considerable power, but has to improve its performance.

Recommendations
The organization should become more transparent to the general public, as far as its operations or actions are concerned, so that people can be assured that they are safe and still possess liberties which the country promises to them. An extensive campaign to help bridge the distance between the people and the organization would help build an understanding as to the operations of the organization. By releasing some information regarding to what extent the organization delves into the databanks of the nation, the citizenry might better understand the purpose of the data-mining and what happens with the data once it is collected. The organization needs to be active in abolishing its image of a shadowy figure looming over the public.

Another recommendation pertains to the second issue, which basically means that the Department of Homeland Security needs to become more active in PR and dealing with the crisis in order not to weaken their own position of being the support for the nation in troubling times. The organization must be the first to respond to natural disasters and create a leading image via the proactive media relationship and promotions.

To successfully implement the recommendations, the factors which need to be considered are the extent to which the organization can release its information. It cannot disclose too much about its operations as it might expose their operations to the wrong crowd however they need to release sufficient knowledge so that the taxpayers are relieved of their misgivings regarding the organization.

The government should play an active role in paving the healthier relations between the organization and the people. The government needs to encourage the organization to consider the rights and liberties of the people and make it answerable to the regular courts so that the people can better relate with the organization. Its bureaucratic structure and the lack of accountability make it alienated from the rest of the governing bodies.

Conclusion
By following the said recommendations, the Department of Homeland Security can help in resolving their actions and making them a more transparent organization. By acting beyond the law, the Department of Homeland Security has become an entity which can take actions which are unaccountable and unjust at times. All the civil liberties and freedoms that the U.S. Constitution proudly proclaims need to be restored and the only way to do so would be to make the government just as answerable for their actions as is the U.S. citizenship.