Reading Assignment

What is Policy?

You are an assistant professor with the Department of Homeland Security, currently teaching undergraduate students at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. You gave a lecture on the U.S. Constitution, homeland security policies, laws and strategies, and their implementation at the national, state, and local levels. Your lecture was quite detailed and long, and many of the students have contacted you with follow-up questions.

You have decided that because of the number of questions and the nature of the questions you received, it would be best if you put out a short paper that went into detail about the topic. Apparently, most of the students who attended the lecture did not take notes.

Assignment Guidelines

Utilizing Homeland Security Presidential Directives (HSPD) as a starting point, please prepare a memo of 750-1,000 words in which you describe the relationship that the various agencies at all levels have with homeland security policies, laws, strategies, and the U.S. Constitution.

Use your course materials, the library, and relevant Internet research options to research HSPD. For instance, HSPD-8 is a Directive on National Preparedness.

Review the HSPD documents found in your research, and choose 1 of the HSPD documents to use for your memo. This is the starting point for this assignment.

The highest level of the U.S. government devises homeland security policies and national strategies, but those policies and strategies must be carried out at all levels of government.

Your memo should explain how these policies and strategies are implemented at the federal, state, and local levels, and how the U.S. Constitution can influence that implementation.

Your answer to the following question can assist you in developing your memo:

How do national, state, and local agencies implement homeland security policies and strategies while accounting for the requirements of the U.S. Constitution and other laws? Explain in detail.

Be sure to reference all sources using APA style.