Number: RL33049
Title: FY2006 Appropriations for Border and Transportation Security
Authors: Jennifer E. Lake and Blas Nunez-Neto, Domestic Social Policy Division 
Abstract: Increasing border and transportation security are essential strategies for improving and maintaining homeland security. Border security entails regulating the flow of goods and people across the nation's borders so that dangerous and unwanted goods or people are detected and denied entry. Transportation security entails screening and protecting people and goods as they move between different locations within the country. Determining which goods and people are permitted and which are denied entry into the United States involves a system of sophisticated border management. This system must balance the need for securing the nation's borders with facilitating the essential commerce and legitimate free flow of citizens and authorized visitors. The system must be capable of a detailed examination of the goods and people seeking entry, but must still fit within budgetary constraints and be administratively feasible. Improving transportation security has meant an expanded federal role in screening passengers and baggage traveling through airports and also increasing the presence of federal officers aboard domestic and international flights. Plans exist to expand the presence of federal officers in other modes of transportation. Finally, these management systems must accomplish their functions with a minimum of disruption of legitimate activities, and without unnecessary intrusion into the civil liberties of persons affected by them.
Pages: 47
Date: August 24, 2005