DocuBase Article: CRS - The Internal Security Council: An .

The Internal Security Council (NSC) was effected by statute in 1947 to make an interdepartmental body to propose the Chair with regard to the consolidation of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the internal security so as to enable the military services and the former departments and agencies of the Administration to collaborate more efficaciously in matters involving the internal security.

Currently, statutory members of the Council are the President, Vice President, the Repository of State, and the Repository of Defense; but, at the Presidents request, other senior officials participate in NSC deliberations. The Chair of the Join Chiefs of Faculty and the Manager of National Intelligence are statutory advisers. In 2007 the Secretary of Vitality was added to the NSC membership.

The President clearly holds final decision-making authority in the executive branch. Over the years, however, the NSC staff has emerged as a major component in the formulation (and at times in the implementation) of home security policy. Similarly, the question of the NSC staff, the Internal Security Adviser, has played important, and occasionally highly public, roles in policymaking. This report traces the development of the NSC from its founding to the present.

The organisation and work of the NSC have varied significantly from one Government to another, from a highly structured and formal organization to loose-knit teams of experts. It is universally acknowledged that the NSC staff should be organised to see the specific goals and exercise habits of an incumbent President. The story of the NSC provides ample evidence of the advantages and disadvantages of dissimilar types of policymaking structures.

Congress enacted the statute creating the NSC and has adapted the case of its membership over the years. Congress annually appropriates funds for its activities, but does not, routinely, receive testimony on substantive matters from the Internal Security Adviser or from NSC staff. Proposals to require Senate confirmation of the Security Adviser have been discussed but not adopted.

The post-Cold War humanity has posed new challenges to NSC policymaking. Some reason that the NSC should be broadened to meditate an expanding role of economic, environmental, and demographic issues in internal security policymaking. The Clinton Administration created a National Economic Council tasked with cooperating closely with the NSC on international economic matters. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the George W. Bush Administration established a Homeland Security Council. The Obama Administration has combined the staffs of the Homeland Security Council and the National Security Council into a single National Security Staff, while retaining the two positions of Internal Security Advisor and Homeland Security Adviser. Although the latter has direct approach to the President, the incumbent is to organizationally report to the Internal Security Adviser.