Homeland Security Council fades to black

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http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

The Homeland Security Council (HSC), a White House agency that advises
the President on homeland security policy, has become one of the
darkest corners of the U.S. Government.

The Council was established by President Bush shortly after September
11, 2001 and it was chartered as an agency within the Executive Office
of the President in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

"Thereafter, the HSC disappeared from the public record," a new report
from the Congressional Research Service noticed.

In particular, according to CRS: The Homeland Security Council "does
not appear to have complied with requirements for Federal Register
publication of such basic information as descriptions of its central
organization."

It has never disclosed "where, from whom, and how the public may obtain
information about it." Nor has it published the required "rules of
procedure, substantive rules of general applicability, and statements
of general policy."

Moreover, "No profile of, or descriptive information regarding, the HSC
or its members and staff has appeared, to date, in the annual editions
of the United States Government Manual."

This peculiar state of affairs was described by Harold C. Relyea of the
Congressional Research Service in "Organizing for Homeland Security: The
Homeland Security Council Reconsidered," March 19, 2008:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RS22840.pdf

Last week, President Bush appointed assistant attorney general Kenneth
L. Wainstein to be homeland security adviser and chair of the Homeland
Security Council, succeeding Frances F. Townsend.