Bush Creates Homeland Security: Post-9/11 America
President George W. Bush created the Office of Homeland Security on October 8, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks. He appointed Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge to lead it. The office had no statutory authority and no budget of its own, serving primarily as a coordinating body among existing agencies. That changed in November 2002 when Congress established the Department of Homeland Security, the largest reorganization of the federal government since 1947. The new department merged 22 agencies and 170,000 employees, including the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Customs, Immigration, FEMA, and the newly created TSA. The consolidation was meant to prevent intelligence failures by centralizing threat assessment. Whether it achieved that goal or simply created a larger bureaucracy remains debated.
October 8, 2001
25 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on October 8
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