National News Bush signs bill to create new U.S. homeland security department

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President George W. Bush signed into law Nov. 25 the long-awaited bill to create a Cabinet-level superagency that will combine 22 separate federal agencies to protect America from terrorism.

The new Department of Homeland Security will have 170,000 employees and bring together such agencies as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Secret Service, the Customs Service, the Federal Emergency Management Administration, the Transportation Security Administration and the Border Patrol.

The new department will gather terrorist intelligence to match it against the nation's vulnerabilities, develop new technologies to detect threats, coordinate the training and funding of state and local police and fire departments, and scrutinize America's borders and ports of entry.

The new department will permit guns in airline cockpits as a last line of defense against hijackers, extend by one year the deadline for the screening of all airline baggage, and provide broad exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act.

Bush nominated former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge as its secretary. Ridge, who has advised Bush on homeland defense for the past year as head of the Office of Homeland Security, now faces the task of combining federal organizations with unique and at times conflicting mandates, traditions and cultures.

"We're showing the resolve of this great nation to defend our freedom, our security and our way of life," Bush said.

Ridge will take office Jan. 24 and begin appointing subordinates. All the agencies will be merged into the department by Sept. 30, 2003.

Bush initially resisted calls to establish a homeland security department, but changed his mind last summer as congressional pressure grew and as criticism mounted of the performance of the CIA and the FBI before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Legislation to create the new department was delayed for months by Senate Democrats, who resisted many of Bush's demands. This month's election, which gave the Republicans control of the Senate, guaranteed a victory for Bush, and the Democrats quickly relented.

米、テロ対策で国土安全省発足へ

ブッシュ米大統領は11月25日、国内のテロ対策を目的にシークレットサービス、移民局など22の政府機関を統合する法案に署名。17万人が働く国土安全保障省が来年発足する。

Shukan ST: Dec. 6, 2002

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