Title I – Enhancing Domestic Security Against Terrorism

Increased funding for the technical support center at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, allowed military assistance to enforce prohibition in certain emergencies, and expanded National Electronic Crime Task Force Initiative.

Title II – Enhanced Surveillance Procedures

Authorized to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to terrorism, computer fraud and abuse offenses, to share criminal investigative information. It allowed seizure of voicemail messages pursuant to warrants and subpoenas for records of electronic communications. It provided delaying notice of the execution of a warrant, pen register and trap and trace authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, access to records and other items under FISA, interception of computer trespasser communications, and nationwide service of search warrants for electronic evidence.

Title III – International Money-laundering Abatement and Antiterrorist Financing Act of 2001

Special measures relating to the following three subtitles were created:

Title IV – Protecting the Border

Special measures relating to the following three subtitles were created:

Title V – Removing Obstacles to Investigating Terrorism

Attorney General and Secretary of State are authorized to pay rewards to combat terrorism. It allowed DNA identification of terrorists and other violent offenders, and allowed disclosure of information from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) surveys.

Title VI – Providing for Victims of Terrorism, Public Safety Officers, and their Families

Special measures relating to the following subtitles were created:

Title VII – Increased Information Sharing for Critical Infrastructure Protection

Expansion of regional information sharing systems to facilitate federal, state, and local law enforcement response related to terrorist attacks.

Title VIII – Strengthening the Criminal Laws against Terrorism

Strengthened laws against terrorist attacks and other acts of violence against mass transportation systems and crimes committed at U.S. facilities abroad.

Provided for the development and support of cyber security forensic capabilities and expanded the biological weapons statute.

Title IX – Improved Intelligence

Responsibilities of Director of Central Intelligence regarding foreign intelligence collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

Inclusion of international terrorist activities within scope of foreign intelligence under National Security Act of 1947.

Disclosure to Director of Central Intelligence of foreign intelligence-related information with respect to criminal investigations.

Foreign terrorist asset tracking center.

Title X – Miscellaneous

Review of the Department of Justice.

Title I – Funding

The Act provides for additional staff and training to increase security on both the northern and southern borders.

Title II – Interagency Information Sharing

The Act requires the President to develop and implement an interoperable electronic data system to provide current and immediate access to information contained in the databases of federal law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community that is relevant to visa issuance determinations and determinations of an alien’s admissibility or deportability.

Title III – Visa Issuance

This requires consular officers issuing a visa to an alien to transmit an electronic version of the alien’s visa file to the INS so that the file is available to immigration inspectors at U.S. ports of entry before the alien’s arrival.

This Act requires the Attorney General and the Secretary of State to begin issuing machine-readable, tamper-resistant travel documents with biometric identifiers.

Title IV – Inspection and Admission of Aliens

It requires the President to submit to Congress a report discussing the feasibility of establishing a North American National Security Program to enhance the mutual security and safety of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

It also requires that all commercial flights and vessels coming to the U.S. from any place outside the country must provide to manifest information about each passenger, crew member, and other occupant prior to arrival in the U.S. In addition, each vessel or aircraft departing from the U.S. for any destination outside the U.S. must provide manifest information before departure.

Title VI – Foreign Students and Exchange Visitors

It requires the Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to establish an electronic means to monitor and verify the various steps involved in the admittance to the U.S. of foreign students, such as: the issuance of documentation of acceptance of a foreign student by an educational institution or exchange visitor program.

Title VII – Miscellaneous

The Act requires the Comptroller General to conduct a study to determine the feasibility of requiring every nonimmigrant alien in the U.S. to provide the INS, on an annual basis, with a current address, and where applicable, the name and address of an employer.

It requires the Secretary of State and the INS Commissioner, in consultation with the Director of the Office of Homeland Security, to conduct a study on the procedures necessary for encouraging or requiring countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program to develop an intergovernmental network of interoperable electronic data systems.

_____1. Access, receive, and analyze law enforcement information, intelligence information, and other information from agencies of the federal government, state and local government agencies (including law enforcement agencies), and private sector entities, and to integrate such information in order to :

_____a. Identify and assess the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the homeland.

_____b. Detect and identify threats of terrorism against the United States.

_____c. Understand such threats in light of actual and potential vulnerabilities of the homeland.

_____2. Carry out comprehensive assessments of the vulnerabilities of the key resources and critical infrastructure of the United States, including the performance of risk assessments to determine the risks posed by particular types of terrorist attacks within the United States (including an assessment of the probability of success of such attacks and the feasibility and potential efficacy of various countermeasures to such attacks).

_____3. Integrate relevant information, analyses, and vulnerability assessments (whether such information, analyses, or assessments are provided or produced by the Department or others) in order to identify priorities for protective and support measures by the Department, other agencies of the federal government, state and local government agencies and authorities, the private sector, and other entities.

_____4. Ensure, pursuant to section 202, the timely and efficient access by the Department to all information necessary to discharge the responsibilities under this section, including obtaining such information from other agencies of the federal government.

_____5. Develop a comprehensive national plan for securing the key resources and critical infrastructure of the United States, including power production, generation, and distribution systems, information technology and telecommunications systems (including satellites), electronic financial and property record storage and transmission systems, emergency preparedness communications systems, and the physical and technological assets that support such systems

_____6. Recommend measures necessary to protect the key resources and critical infrastructure of the United States in coordination with other agencies of the federal government and in cooperation with state and local government agencies and authorities, the private sector, and other entities.

_____7. Administer the Homeland Security Advisory System, including:

_____a. Exercising primary responsibility for public advisories related to threats to homeland security.

_____b. In coordination with other agencies of the federal government, providing specific warning information, and advice about appropriate protective measures and countermeasures, to state and local government agencies and authorities, the private sector, other entities, and the public.

_____8. Review, analyze, and make recommendations for improvements in the policies and procedures governing the sharing of law enforcement information, intelligence information, intelligence-related information, and other information relating to homeland security within the federal government and between the federal government and state and local government agencies and authorities.

_____9. Disseminate, as appropriate, information analyzed by the Department within the Department, to other agencies of the federal government with responsibilities relating to homeland security, and to agencies of state and local governments and private sector entities with such responsibilities in order to assist in the deterrence, prevention, preemption of, or response to, terrorist attacks against the United States.

_____10. Consult with the Director of Central Intelligence and other appropriate intelligence, law enforcement, or other elements of the federal government to establish collection priorities and strategies for information, including law enforcement-related information, relating to threats of terrorism against the United States through such means as the representation of the Department in discussions regarding requirements and priorities in the collection of such information.

_____11. Consult with state and local governments and private sector entities to ensure appropriate exchanges of information, including law enforcement-related information, relating to threats of terrorism against the United States.

_____12. Ensure that:

_____a. Any material received pursuant to this Act is protected from unauthorized disclosure and handled and used only for the performance of official duties.

_____b. Any intelligence information under this Act is shared, retained, and disseminated consistent with the authority of the Director of Central Intelligence to protect intelligence sources and methods under the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 401 et seq.) and related procedures and, as appropriate, similar authorities of the Attorney General concerning sensitive law enforcement information.

_____13. Request additional information from other agencies of the federal government, state and local government agencies, and the private sector relating to threats of terrorism in the United States, or relating to other areas of responsibility assigned by the Secretary, including the entry into cooperative agreements through the Secretary to obtain such information.

_____14. Establish and utilize, in conjunction with the chief information officer of the Department, a secure communications and information technology infrastructure, including data mining and other advanced analytical tools, in order to access, receive, and analyze data and information in furtherance of the responsibilities under this section, and to disseminate information acquired and analyzed by the Department, as appropriate.

_____15. Ensure, in conjunction with the chief information officer of the Department, any information databases and analytical tools developed or utilized by the Department:

_____a. Are compatible with one another and with relevant information databases of other agencies of the federal government.

_____b. Treat information in such databases in a manner that complies with applicable federal law on privacy.

_____16. Coordinate training and other support to the elements and personnel of the Department, other agencies of the federal government, and state and local governments that provide information to the Department, or are consumers of information provided by the Department, in order to facilitate the identification and sharing of information revealed in their ordinary duties and the optimal utilization of information received from the Department.

_____17. Coordinate with elements of the intelligence community and with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, and the private sector, as appropriate.

_____18. Provide intelligence and information analysis and support to other elements of the Department.

_____19. Perform such other duties relating to such responsibilities as the Secretary may provide.

1. Creation of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9-11 Commission)

2. Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9-11 Commission Report)

3. Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (PL 108-458)

4. Implementing Recommendations of the 9-11 Commission Act of 2007 (PL 110-53)

Creation of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (The 9-11 Commission)

Congress created the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known as the 9-11 Commission) to provide a “full and complete accounting” of the terrorist attacks and recommendations as to how to prevent such attacks in the future.²⁰ Specifically, the Commission was required to investigate “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,” including those relating to intelligence agencies; law-enforcement agencies; diplomacy; immigration, nonimmigrant visas, and border control; the flow of assets to terrorist organizations; commercial aviation; the role of congressional oversight and resource allocation; and other areas determined relevant by the Commission for its inquiry.

The Commission was composed of 10 members, of whom not more than five members of the Commission were from the same political party.

In response to the requirements under law, the Commission organized work teams to address each of the following eight topics²¹:

Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (The 9-11 Commission Report)

The 9-11 Commission interviewed more than 1000 individuals in 10 countries and held at least 10 days of public hearings, receiving testimony from more than 110 federal, state, and local officials and experts from the private sector. The Commission issued three subpoenas to government agencies: the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Defense, and the City of New York. On July 22, 2004, the 9-11 Commission issued its final report, which included 41 wide-ranging recommendations to help prevent future terrorist attacks. This report covers both general and specific findings. Here is the summary of their general findings:

Since the plotters were flexible and resourceful, we cannot know whether any single step or series of steps would have defeated them. What we can say with confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the U.S. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot. Across the government, there were failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management.²²

Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (PL 108-458)

Many of the recommendations of the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (The 9-11 Commission Report) were put into the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. This Act, divided into 10 titles, brought about significant reorganization of intelligence community and critical infrastructures protection.²³

Implementing Recommendations of the 9-11 Commission Act of 2007 (PL 110-53)

Soon after the Democratic Party came into the majority in the House of Representatives, the 110th Congress passed another act, “Implementing Recommendations of the 9-11 Commission Act of 2007 (PL 110-53, August 3, 2007).”²⁴ Approximately a year after the passing of this law, the Majority Staffs of the Committees on Homeland and Foreign Affairs put its attention on the extent to which the law was indeed implemented and issued a report on “Wasted Lessons of 9/11: How The Bush Administration Ignored the Law and Squandered Its Opportunities to Make Our Country Safer.”²⁵

This comprehensive Homeland Security legislation included provisions to strengthen the nation’s security against terrorism by requiring screening of all cargo placed on passenger aircraft; securing mass transit, rail and bus systems; assuring the scanning of all U.S.-bound maritime cargo; distributing Homeland Security grants based on risk; creating a dedicated grant program to improve interoperable radio communications; creating a coordinator for U.S. nonproliferation programs and improving international cooperation for interdiction of weapons of mass destruction; developing better mechanisms for modernizing education in Muslim communities and Muslim-majority countries, and creating a new forum for reform-minded members of those countries; formulating coherent strategies for key countries; establishing a common coalition approach on the treatment of detainees; and putting resources into making democratic reform an international effort, rather than a unilaterally U.S. one. When President George W. Bush signed H.R. 1 into law on August 3, 2007 without any limiting statement, it seemed that the unfulfilled security recommendations of the 9-11 Commission would finally be implemented. To ensure that they were, over the past year the Majority staffs of the Committees on Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs have conducted extensive oversight to answer the question, How is the Bush Administration doing on fulfilling the requirements of the “Implementing Recommendations of the 9-11 Commission Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-53)? The Majority staffs of the two Committees prepared this report to summarize their findings. While the Majority staffs of the Committees found that the Bush Administration has taken some steps to carry out the provisions of the Act, this report focuses on the Administration’s performance with respect to key statutory requirements in the following areas: (1) aviation security; (2) rail and public transportation security; (3) port security; (4) border security; (5) information sharing; (6) privacy and civil liberties; (7) emergency response; (8) biosurveillance; (9) private sector preparedness; and (10) national security. In each of the 25 individual assessments in this report, a status update is provided on the Bush Administration’s performance on these key provisions. The status of the key provisions identified in the report, help explain why the report is entitled “Wasted Lessons of 9/11: How the Bush Administration Has Ignored the Law and Squandered Its Opportunities to Make Our Country Safer.”²⁶

Based on this report, it is clear that the Bush Administration did not deliver on myriad critical homeland and national security mandates set forth in the “Implementing the Recommendations of 9-11 Commission Act of 2007.” Members of the Committees were alarmed that the Bush Administration did not make more progress on implementing these key provisions.,