State and Local Homeland Security: Unresolved Issues for the 109th Congress

Arguably, the three most important homeland security public laws enacted following the terrorist attacks on September 2001 are the USA PATRIOT Act, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. This report describes each of these pieces of legislation and their respective domestic security enhancements. Many important state and local homeland security policy issues remain, separate from these three laws, which the 109th Congress might address. This report also describes these such issues, which include unmet emergency responder needs, absence of emergency responder equipment standards, and the development of state and local homeland security strategies, among others