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Federal government responds to terrorism

President Bush outlined plans for aviation security at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in late September 2001.

(CNN) – Following the September 11 attacks, the federal government focused its energies on providing new measures to protect the nation from future terrorist attacks.

The attacks led to a series of government actions aimed at countering the new threat of large-scale terrorism, including the proposed creation of a new Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security.

Over the past year, Congress and federal agencies have taken other key steps aimed at strengthening security within the nation's borders.

Funds for recovery, security

A few days after the attacks, a united Congress passed a $40 billion emergency spending package -- twice as much as the White House had requested -- to fund post-attack recovery, security and law enforcement efforts.

As of June 30, about $14 billion of that total remained unspent, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

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In early August, President Bush signed a $28.9 billion supplemental spending package for homeland security and defense to cover the remainder of fiscal year 2002.

Half of the money was earmarked for the Pentagon and intelligence gathering. A portion of the other half was to go to programs like security at ports and nuclear facilities, New York's rebuilding efforts, and aid to overseas allies. The remainder was set aside for non terrorism-related items.

Bush exercised an option given him by Congress and declined to designate $5.1 billion of the money as emergency funding -- in part because of the $14 billion still unspent from Congress' original $40 billion emergency allocation.

The Patriot Act

Six weeks after the attacks, President Bush signed into law a measure that granted federal authorities expanded powers for surveillance and intelligence gathering. Both houses of Congress had passed the bill by wide margins.

The law, dubbed the U.S.A. Patriot Act, called for federal authorities to use more foreign intelligence information, gave authorities expanded wiretapping authority, and allowed intelligence agencies access to wiretaps and to secret grand jury testimony.

It also created new criminal charges and expanded penalties related to terrorism. The law ran afoul of civil liberties advocates, who said its provisions would harm the rights of American citizens and immigrants.

Congress and airport security

The September 11 attacks raised troubling issues about airports and air security, and Congress attempted to address them in a broad aviation security bill that President Bush signed last November.

The measure's boldest stroke was the creation of a new agency, the Transportation Security Administration, which was handed responsibility for airport security.

The fledgling TSA immediately had a staggering mandate: to mobilize a force of more than 30,000 government-employed security screeners to the nation's 429 commercial airports within a year, and to have equipment in place by December 31, 2002, to screen all checked baggage for explosives.

The TSA began taking over airport security in February, and the mission has proved taxing.

In July, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said the TSA was about to run out of money, and warned the agency's deadlines could slip as a result. The TSA had been forced to borrow $1 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he said.

Three days after Mineta's remarks, TSA head John Magaw resigned – forced out, government sources said, amid complaints from airport executives and lawmakers as the TSA scrambled to meet its bag-screening deadline. Magaw's deputy, former U.S. Coast Guard Commandant James Loy, took over the agency.

In late July, the House of Representatives passed legislation extending the baggage-screening deadline by a year, to December 31, 2003.

Although that decision was criticized by numerous members of Congress, the TSA as of late August had yet to even complete site assessments for installing and running the massive baggage screening equipment.

While the baggage deadline appeared likely to slip, TSA officials said they would meet the November 19 deadline to have federally employed screeners at all 429 airports – although, as of August 20, the agency had deployed federal screeners to just 37 airports.

FBI reorganization

Intelligence-gathering agencies came under sharp criticism after September 11 for missing signs that, collectively, could have pointed to an imminent terrorist attack.

Post-9/11 examination of the FBI found an agency plagued by turf battles and challenged to share information internally and externally. Especially troubling were two incidents involving field agents.

Coleen Rowley, an agent in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, office, wrote a memo which said FBI headquarters stymied her efforts in summer 2001to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, who was eventually charged as a conspirator in the September 11 attacks.

And in May, a memo from an agent in the bureau's Phoenix, Arizona, office came to light. The memo, written in July 2001 but never acted upon, urged FBI headquarters to investigate a group of Middle Eastern men training at U.S. flight schools.

Stung by the criticism, the FBI in late May announced a reorganization that would focus more of the bureau's assets on fighting terrorism.

The plan called for the hiring of hundreds of new agents, many of them in the anti-terrorism field; the transfer of more than 500 agents from criminal investigations to terrorism prevention; a new terrorism squad within the FBI; and more cooperation with the CIA in intelligence gathering.

In announcing the reorganization, FBI Director Robert Mueller said, "We need a different approach that puts prevention above all else."

Not everyone has embraced the change. Some city leaders fear moving agents into terrorism prevention will leave other law enforcement efforts wanting.

"That's robbing Peter to pay Paul. You're going to sacrifice street security in order to provide homeland security," said John DiStefano, Mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, and first vice president of the National League of Cities.

"What you're telling us is, you're backing out of some of the business of what you've traditionally done, of law enforcement on our streets," he said. "And frankly, for many of us, we have more people who experience the violence of drug terrorists than Taliban terrorists or al Qaeda terrorists."

-- CNN's Sean Loughlin contributed to this report.