Intelligence expert James Bamford says it's a knee-jerk reaction to the attacks, done for public relations purposes, created in a rush, and it doesn't fix the system for sharing intelligence. He claims it not only won't increase efficiency, but may turn out to be worse than no change at all.

"Instead of moving people together you should be moving information together," Bamford says. "You should be taking information and finding better ways to distribute it; faster ways to distribute it among people."

Signing the homeland security bill ends an odyssey for legislation that started inching through Congress nearly a year ago against Mr. Bush's opposition, only to see him offer his own version after momentum became unstoppable.

The bill became snarled in partisan disputes on Capitol Hill, with Democrats refusing to grant the president the broad powers he sought to hire, fire and move workers in the new department. Mr. Bush would not yield, and made the disagreement a political issue, railing against Democrats as he campaigned for Republican candidates through the fall. Democrats reversed course after their Election Day loss of Senate control was attributed partly to the homeland security fight.

The road to passing the homeland security bill was tortuous to the end.

Yes, Bush the old divider at work to keep us "freed" after pressured into it...

From CBS news