Department of Homeland Security and Its Acronyms

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Introduction This paper will briefly discuss the formation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). With every government program or agency comes an alphabet soup of acronyms and DHS is no different from the rest. To better understand the agency and concepts that comprise DHS, this paper will also examine acronyms associated with DHS. They are QHSR, HSE, NRF, NIMS, ICS, and UC. Each will get a description while highlighting and discussing core elements or requirements that each acronym calls for or offers. Department of Homeland Security September 11, 2001 is a day in American history that no one old enough to remember the day will ever forget. Terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania were the events that led to the creation of the DHS. DHS began as the Office of Homeland Security under the direction of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge in the White House just eleven days after the September 11 attacks. Safeguarding the country from future terrorist attacks by strategizing at a national level was the first responsibility of the newly created office. In 2002, DHS, “with the passage of the Homeland Security Act by Congress in November, DHS formally came into being as a stand-alone, Cabinet-level department to further coordinate and unify national homeland security efforts” (DHS, n.d.). Not since President Harry Truman consolidated the armed forces into the Department of Defense had the government undergone such a large reorganization. Twenty-two agencies came together to form DHS with tasks that include border patrol, disaster recovery and transportation safety just to name a few. Incident Command... ... middle of paper ... ...econd quadrennial homeland security review: Setting priorities for the next four years. Retrieved from http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/02/the-second-quadrennial-homeland-security-review-setting-priorities-for-the-next-four-years Department of Homeland Security (DHS). (n.d.). Creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved from http://www.dhs.gov/creation-department-homeland-security Department of Homeland Security (DHS). (n.d.). Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR). Retrieved from https://www.dhs.gov/quadrennial-homeland-security-review-qhsr Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (2014). National response framework. Retrieved from http://www.fema.gov/national-response-framework Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA). (n.d.). What is unified command? Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/ics/what_is_uc.html

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