by XEC

Created on: March 01, 2009

The response to the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission Report shows that Congress may not always be able to act in accordance with people's wishes. As shown by the negative outbursts and criticisms of the report, people have proven that Congress isn't always the end-all decision making body. The failure of the Commission Report was caused by many factors: the president and his advisers choosing the panel for the Commission, the lack of support given to the members by both the financial backers and other people in Congress, and the relatively short timeline in which the members of the Commission were given to complete the report. All of these factors were instrumental in the failure that was the Commission report.

There were many complaints by many government officials that there was corruption and lying done by the members of the Commission on the subject of the attacks and events leading up to them. Much pre-9/11 intelligence had been censored by the government agencies such as the FBI and NSA for security purposes. This fact had made it extremely difficult to come to any conclusion about knowledge before the attacks. Pre-attack evidence isn't as easily available and caused many holdups during the investigation.

Congress has responded relatively well to terrorism since the attacks. Passing bills such as the Department of Homeland Security Act and the Patriot Act, Congress was and still is able to gather information on the terrorists and has claimed to have stopped almost a hundred attacks. The Homeland Security Act was instrumental in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which deals with the prevention of, and response to any terror attacks in the future. Although the Patriot Act is criticized by the liberal media as, too "nosy" and able to be corrupted

with the wrong intentions in mind, it has been instrumental in the stopping of terroristic attacks and the finding of terror suspects in America.

I believe that the overall test on how well Congress has adapted to terrorism is the fact that there have no reported terroristic attacks on United States soil the passing of all of these bills attempting to do just that; stop terroristic attacks. That is the true test of whether or not the bills passed are successful, and from the stoppage of attacks in America and the recent attacks in Madrid and London, I'd say that we Americans can say we have a much better system of search and destroy than any other country.

The current power structure of our government makes feel about as safe as I can feel. Although there is always the threat of another attack by any terrorist group that has multiple cells in any country, I feel as if we change things now it will only go downhill from there. We must keep with our current system since history has shown us that our way has been successful for on the upwards of 250 years. The power structure of every branch being equal, with exclusion of Congress (since their power is a bit stronger than the other branches) seems to work well to create the system of checks and balances that this country has been founded upon. The checks and balances is the foundation on which all laws are passed/enacted.

In these uncertain times, no one can feel one hundred percent safe about anything in their lives, whether it be airplane trips, wiretapping, or a hostage situation the best defense we as American people have against terrorist attacks is to keep alert and on the lookout for suspicious behavior of all people.

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