The Department of Homeland Security was created with the purpose of defending the United States against terrorist attacks on our own soil. With the tasks of maintaining border and transportation security, protecting our digital communication systems and networks, and fighting off terrorist threats including weapons of mass destruction, the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, is becoming one of the most extensive government organizations of modern times. Consisting of over 180,000 personnel and twenty government organizations, the DHS is responsible for the single largest government reorganization since the cold war. However, while the DHS is in charge of protecting us, it is also taking away some of the civil rights that Americans have taken for granted since the establishment of the United States Constitution. Power granted by the Homeland Security Act can also be given credit for America's involvement in an unwanted war.

Government officials' personal endeavors have become...