Homeland Security Bills
On February 3, 2009, the House passed three homeland security bills. The House passed all three of these bills in the summer of 2008; unfortunately, the Senate did not act upon them.
The Reducing Over-Classification Act, H.R. 553 enhances accountability by requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop a strategy to prevent over-classification of security information and improve the access of state and local law enforcement, as well as the public, to DHS documents. The House passed an identical bill on July 30, 2008.
The second key homeland security bill passed was the Fair, Accurate, Secure, and Timely (FAST) Redress Act, H.R. 559, which enhances accountability by providing more expedited redress for those misidentified on terrorist watch lists and by ensuring a Comprehensive Cleared List is shared with federal, state and local officials. The House passed an identical bill on June 18, 2008.
The House also passed the National Bombing Prevention Act, H.R. 549, which strengthens efforts to prevent and protect against terrorist explosive attacks by such provisions as formally authorizing the Office for Bombing Prevention (which has never been formally authorized by law) and requiring the development of a national strategy on terrorist explosive attacks. The House passed an identical bill on June 18, 2008.
Following is a brief overview of each of these three bills.
H.R. 553, Reducing Over-Classification Act
- Enhances accountability by requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop and administer policies, procedures, and programs to prevent the over-classification of security information.
- Requires that all classified intelligence products created at DHS be simultaneously created in a standard unclassified format – in an effort to expand the amount of material that is shared with state and local officials, including law enforcement officials.
- Requires “portion marking,” which requires classification marks to sensitive portions of the text and permits the remainder of the document to remain unclassified and shared with state and local officials, including law enforcement officials.
- Includes provisions for employee training, limits on who can classify documents, requiring regular audits, and establishing penalties for staff who repeatedly fail to comply with classification policies after notice and an opportunity for re-training.
H.R. 559, Fair, Accurate, Secure, and Timely (FAST) Redress Act
- Enhances accountability by requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish a more effective redress process for individuals who have been misidentified by security personnel and therefore blocked from travel, through the establishment of the Office of Appeals and Redress at DHS.
- Also requires DHS to establish a Comprehensive Cleared List containing the names of all individuals who have been misidentified by security personnel but have subsequently been cleared.
- Requires DHS to ensure that the Comprehensive Cleared List is maintained by the Office of Appeals and Redress and is furnished to and used by all DHS components that perform screening.
- Requires DHS to also ensure that the Comprehensive Cleared List is furnished to all federal, state, local, and tribal agencies that use the terrorist watch list.
H.R. 549, National Bombing Prevention Act
- Formally authorizes the Office of Bombing Prevention in the Department of Homeland Security, which was administratively created in 2003 but has never formally been authorized by law.
- Provides that the office has the primary responsibility for enhancing the nation’s ability to deter, detect, prevent, protect against, and respond to terrorist explosive attacks in the United States.
- Requires the office to conduct an analysis of federal, state and local capabilities in preventing and protecting against a terrorist explosive attack.
- Requires the office to maintain a national database on the capabilities of bomb squads, explosive detection teams, canine teams, tactic teams, and public safety dive teams around the nation.
- Requires DHS to develop within 90 days of enactment, and then periodically update, a national strategy to prevent and prepare for terrorist explosive attacks in the United States.
- Requires the department’s Science and Technology Directorate to ensure coordination and information sharing regarding research, development, testing, and evaluation activities relating to explosives, as well as the tools and technologies necessary to neutralize and disable explosive devices.