The Homeland Security Intelligence Community Overview

The Homeland Security Intelligence Community Overview

Homeland security is an arm of national security in the United States which is concerned with ensuring safety in a homeland against terrorism and other hazardous attacks such as natural disasters. According to Dawes (2015), the responsibility of Homeland Security does not belong to the National defense alone but to all other government entities altogether. Some of the responsibilities of National security include; preparedness for terrorism and natural disaster emergencies and the consecutive responses, border control, protection of critical infrastructure, control of all activities at the border, both domestic and international intelligence as well as research activities promoting technologies to be used in the next generation. Despite the numerous benefits of Homeland security, there are also subsequent challenges surrounding it which incapacitate its smooth operations. The two limitations aspects that limit intelligence support to the homeland security enterprise are; implementation of management functions management for people who would like to enter or leave the United States and maintenance of cybersecurity in this technological era.

The Homeland Security Intelligence Community Overview

The homeland security intelligence community is s an arm under homeland security which is large and complex. It operates on a multitude of laws, executive orders, policies, and directives. The main role of security intelligence is to provide home security with important information in regards to what is happening around to facilitate decision making and peacekeeping activities through an intelligence cycle. An intelligence cycle involves day to day activities followed to validate security activities. The intelligence community is paramount because it gives the federal government informed advice to enhance decision making. The role of national intelligence falls under the office of National Intelligence headed by a director-general whose main role is to manage 16 agencies in intelligence activities.

Development of Home security for the Future

Home security activities started way back in 1700 when alarms made from chimes were placed at the doors for security alerts. As technology continued to advance, magnetic alarms were invented in 1800 and they offered better alarms security. Today, people are relying on guard dogs and mechanical ringing to catch any trespassers. With the evolution of technology, computer advancements have brought about the evolution of CCTV’s surveillance for home security. Today, the demand for CCTV’s as a security tool has rapidly increased hence resulting in the need to reinvent its features to suit homes, business premises, and even public spaces. Due to the increasing need for CCTV systems, there has been a subsequent need for advancement of features to a more efficient and user-friendly system. In the recent past, we have had the launch of smart home security systems that are synchronized to our android phones for maximum security. This also includes the invention of biometric user security systems which only allows only the administered people to have entry to a premise. Looking at the next generation for home security are things like video face recognition and retina camera systems for doors

Reasons why is it hard to Provide Intelligence Support for Home Security

The intelligence community has the role of collecting, analyze and act on information gathered on different people and activities within a state (Cohn et al, 2016). Their mandate enables them to handle extremely sensitive information concerning all undertakings of the country. Such information is better of in the custody of to notch federal government management so that they can make decisions well to the best interest of the state with little or no interference by private parties. However, intelligence support for home security has been rendered a challenging factor due to two main reasons which are; poor implementation of managing functions and cyber-crimes.

Implementation of Management Functions

All successful home security functions start and end with the quality of management under implementation. Home security management puts together the plans and procedures that are necessary to achieve home security functions for the state. Management also has the role of maintaining the confidentiality of all sorts of information available at the disposal of the home security office. However, it has proved to be very challenging to implement management functions for home security and more so to maintain intelligence support.

Limitations of Management Functions to Home Security Intelligence

Good management systems include the application of principles that help to manage security threats. It involves assessing the consequences of potential risks surrounding the security of the state. The main role of a management system in home security is establishing a preparedness and response action plan for all sorts of issues that can potentially affect the stability of a state. At any one time, the safety of the people is prioritized over any other infrastructure development of a nation. The management functions of homeland security are challenged by the integrity of individuals who hold offices in the department of home security. The management’s lack of ethical norms has led to having very confidential and delicate information landing to the wrong hands. Eventually, decision making becomes manipulated because confidential information is already in the hands of so many people who in one way or another are tampering with the home security function due to selfish needs. When the management is compromised, policies are also compromised and laws are broken to suit specific interests that are not beneficial to the whole federal state. For instance, measures that have been taken to control all border activities are compromised when management is not functional. It causes lots of entry of strangers into the country who introduce terrorism activities and destabilize the country. The customs area at the border is the harbor items in and out of a state and compromising home security management gives a free leeway of items that are likely to compromise security such as firearms and explosions. Border security policies reduce the chances of having illegal travel in and out of a state. Next-generation security technologies that shed new hope towards improving home security activities are challenged when management functions are not straight. Poor management does not support research to establish new ideas to deal with security issues. Intelligence support is not achievable with challenges of

Cyber Security

Today all federal information is computerized and hence there is a need for a technology to protect computers, networks, programs, and data from access by anybody who is not authorized. Cyber-attacks can lead to blackouts to pave way for the hacking of computers and subsequent leaking of sensitive security secrets. Cyber-attacks can lead to paralyzing of the smooth running of systems making data unavailable for use at the time when it is needed. Volner and Pousek (2014) state that cyber threats are very serious and most of these attacks are a nuisance and tend to challenge the lives of individuals. Despite there being numerous data security solutions, cyber risks are real. Unfortunately, the mitigation strategies the government is putting into place to eradicate cyber risks are moving slower as compared to the innovation of cybercriminals. At the end of the day, it seems like the cybercrime convicts are still ahead in terms of innovation because they are still managing to break into government data systems to extract data. There are many sources of cyber-crimes. They may include criminal organizations, terrorists, hackers, nation-states, industrial spies, or business competitors. All data regarding a specific state is in the custody of the government officials (Kirillova et al 2017). Any linkages of these officials to terrorist groups or criminal organizations may cause leakage of information. The most serious cyber-attacks attacks are nation-states driven and it poses a challenge to home security. This happens when states try to get secret information about other states to cause disruptions for selfish gains. These manners of cybercrimes have led to hostility and antagonism between the states especially at the border. The countries that get most affected by this form of cyber-attack are landlocked because they rely on the neighboring countries to ship in commodities into the country. Achieving cybersecurity is always work in progress (Friedewald, Vildjiounaite, Punie and Wright, 2017). It takes a lot of capacity building and training to ensure that it is possible to keep up with the sophistication of the attackers. The defenders need to achieve a 100% cover to stop attacks while the attackers only need one successful attack to destroy everything. Attackers are acquiring more surface to explore because everyday organizations are growing and so is the data capacity. There is a need for efficient cybersecurity respond force to swiftly manage any sort of attack that may happen. However, there is the inadequate capacity of the defenders hence they are not able to act on the cyber-attacks as swiftly as it would have been required of them. Management also has a huge role in maintaining the cybersecurity of all sorts of information available at the disposal of the home security office. Cybersecurity subsequently promotes intelligence which translates to cybersecurity.

Conclusion

The peace of a state is determined by how best it can manage home security. Home security management puts together the plans and procedures that are necessary to achieve home security functions for the state. The intelligence community is paramount because it gives the federal government informed advice to enhance decision making. Technology has had a huge impact on maintaining home security because of inventions of security systems such as CCTVs and android powered alarm systems which have made it possible and easier to detect any sort of invasion that would cause a security threat. Poor management functions and cyber-crimes remain to be the main challenges that are hindering the smooth action of Home security functions. The federal government has a huge responsibility in mitigating these challenges by coming up with policies that help to control cybercrimes as well as empowering the management with know-how on how best they can manage home security. Achieving Home security intelligence is an achievable goal if subsequent work and dedication s put towards reducing the challenges that short change its functions.