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After the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, and the national focus on homeland security, specific responsibility for the identification of Florida's domestic security issues and the coordination of State responses was tasked to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. While foreign and domestic terrorism remains a critical concern of the federal government, state and local governments clearly have an essential role safeguarding citizens, preventing domestic terrorism, and responding to any domestic security event or incident should one occur.
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Under the leadership of Florida's Governor and Legislature, municipalities, counties, and state agencies together identified Florida’s vulnerabilities, and devised comprehensive strategies and plans for prevention, mitigation, and response. Using both state and federal revenue support, Florida has developed, prioritized, and funded projects to implement statewide multidisciplinary plans.
The resulting Domestic Security Strategy is a working document that is revisited and re-prioritized to address current needs and conditions, new federal guidance, and available funding. To fully support these strategies, Florida has an inclusive structure designed to encourage and facilitate multi-jurisdictional and multidisciplinary participation at all levels.
Florida’s vision is to ensure a safe and secure future, free of terror. Within this overall goal, strategies are outlined to strengthen our domestic security prevention, preparedness, protection, response, and recovery capabilities. Interdisciplinary and interagency consensus and relying on strong regional mutual aid response capabilities are fundamental to this focused efforts. Under the key elements of strategy, structure, and partnerships, Florida's vision aligns domestic security policy objectives under five distinct goals:
- Prevent, preempt and deter acts of terrorism.
- Prepare for terrorism response missions.
- Protect Florida’s citizens, visitors, and critical infrastructure.
- Respond in a immediate, effective, and coordinated manner, focused on the victims of the attack.
- Recover quickly and restore our way of life following a terrorist act.
Regional Domestic Security Task Forces
Florida's seven Regional Domestic Security Task Forces play key roles in implementing statewide, regional, and local policy recommendations. Each task force represents functional component groups including Law Enforcement, Fire-Rescue, Health-Medical, Emergency Management, Interoperable Communications, Critical Infrastructure, Education-Schools, Public Information, and Training. Component groups play a vital role in preparing for a planned response to prevent a terrorist attack. In addition, task force resources (agencies and organizations) are prepared to respond immediately to any domestic security/terrorist incident and will cooperatively form an integrated command structure to address the incident and protect Florida residents and visitors.
Domestic Security Information for Florida's Citizens
Members of the general public can become more familiar with Florida's domestic security initiatives and gain a general understanding about terrorism by visiting these links to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Information Page for Domestic Security as well as FDLE's Secure Florida website.
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