The Homeland Security Council (HSC), a White House agency that advises the President on homeland security policy, has become one of the darkest corners of the U.S. Government.
The Council was established by President Bush shortly after September 11, 2001 and it was chartered as an agency within the Executive Office of the President in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
“Thereafter, the HSC disappeared from the public record,” a new report from the Congressional Research Service (pdf) noticed.
In particular, according to CRS: The Homeland Security Council “does not appear to have complied with requirements for Federal Register publication of such basic information as descriptions of its central organization.”
It has never disclosed “where, from whom, and how the public may obtain information about it.” Nor has it published the required “rules of procedure, substantive rules of general applicability, and statements of general policy.”
Moreover, “No profile of, or descriptive information regarding, the HSC or its members and staff has appeared, to date, in the annual editions of the United States Government Manual.”
This peculiar state of affairs was described by Harold C. Relyea of the Congressional Research Service in “Organizing for Homeland Security: The Homeland Security Council Reconsidered,” March 19, 2008.
Last week, President Bush appointed assistant attorney general Kenneth L. Wainstein to be homeland security adviser and chair of the Homeland Security Council, succeeding Frances F. Townsend.
When a hurricane hits, it’s all hands on deck – that goes for federal data, too. Pulling back from our investments in timely, accurate, and accessible public data will only make us less prepared and put us all at greater risk.
This is bigger than a singular elimination of race and ethnicity questions. It could accelerate the second wave of widespread reductions to demographic data, leaving public health officials with even less information to deliver better health outcomes for all Americans.
Soft law was never meant to be a permanent solution. Treating it as one, and letting the sandcastle stand in for the skyscraper indefinitely, is how we end up with a decade of voluntary commitments and no enforceable accountability to show for it.
FAS has partnered with ICLEI USA to launch the CRI Local Advisory Council.