Overview and Origins of Homeland Security and how that impacts Emergency Management

Although the Department of Homeland Security is just over a decade old, the idea of protecting (not defending, which I will get into sometime down the line) The idea to "provide for the common defense" was one of the foundations the United States of America was built upon. One can find evidence of this in Article 1, Section Eight. Within Section Eight is subsection 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,17:

 Article 6: To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

Article 10: To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

Article 11: To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

Article 12: To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

Article 13: To provide and maintain a navy;

Article 14: To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

Article 15: To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

Article 16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Article 17: To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;

 These powers were granted to the congress (not executive, but more on that later) by the governed is evidence that although defense against invasion was the top priority of the early remits of Homeland Defense, our Founders understood that not all threats come from other nations, but also  from outsides factors.
Which brings us to Emergency Management. It is the forgotten child of the Homeland Security Enterprise. While a focus should be on prevention, we have to accept that the Department of Homeland Security is run by human beings, and despite their best intention, cannot prevent every person with negative intentions from achieving their goals. One can point to the Boston Bombing in April of 2013 and the San Bernardino shootings in December of 2015 as successful plots that were executed here in the U.S.
Now that we have accepted this hard reality, and it is a hard reality, we can now take the necessary steps to secure ourselves and those close to us. That is the goal of this site, to help you stay informed and prepared. Because in the end, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.