"The rationale for the creation of the D.H.S., as laid out by the George W. Bush Administration, was that the knowledge, skills, and capabilities that could have stopped the 9/11 attacks were spread out among many government agencies, with no single body in charge of fighting terrorism. The proposal for creating the department presented hypothetical examples of failures to coördinate among different agencies. When a ship sailed into U.S. waters, for instance, the Coast Guard had the power to stop it for inspection, but it was up to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deal with the people on board, and up to Customs and Border Protection or the Department of Agriculture to stop any dangerous or illegal cargo. The examples made D.H.S. seem like something that should exist. That logic held, though, only if you thought about travel, immigration, and trade primarily as security concerns. There are countries that think like that. I grew up in one—it was called the Soviet Union, and it had an agency, the Committee for State Security (K.G.B.), which had its tentacles in every area of society."