Midterm Legislative Critique 

 

There are two significant pieces of legislation that impact maritime security in the United States. These include the Maritime Transportation Security Act 2002 and the S.A.F.E. Port Act of 2006. 

 

For this assignment, you are to conduct a graduate level Legislative Critique, which includes compare and contrast, of these two pieces of legislation. To do this critique perform the following steps:

 

1. Obtain a copy of the piece of legislation to be examined.  (MTSA and S.A.F.E. Port Act of 2006)

2. Collect and analyze news media reports on the legislation.

3. Collect and analyze any other critiques of the legislation. (i.e. Think tanks, academics, etc)

4. Collect and analyze available witness testimony with regard to the legislation.

5. Compare and contrast what you have learned....similarities, gaps, areas that need further development or focus....these are a few areas to consider.

 

To compose a legislative critique students should compose an analysis based upon the following points: 

Provide a brief legislative history of the Bills. (No more that 500 words - USE WORD ECONOMY)!

Determine if the Bills focus was introduced in the past under a different name and/or format. If so, evaluate why the legislation was discarded. 

Summarize the main points of each bill in your own words (but supported by citation as appropriate)

Evaluate and categorize the strengths and weaknesses of the individual legislation, then compared/contrast against each other. 

Conclude with a final assessment of both pieces of legislation including SPECIFIC recommendations that could be considered to enhance the security framework that has been established. These recommendations need to be as specific as possible JUSTIFY why you believe this should be considered.  Are there still gaps, is there areas over over-reach? etc. 

 

REMEMBER: THIS IS A PORT SECURITY CLASS. YOUR ANALYSIS SHOULD BE FOCUSED ON THE EFFECTS OF THIS LEGISLATION ON PORT SECURITY. THIS IS NOT A GENERAL REVIEW.

The critique will be between 4-6 pages in length not counting cover sheet and references. Provide 5-8 quality PEER REVIEWED references as support.  Submit assignment in APA format.  (Note: Wikipedia is NOT peer reviewed, neither is CNN or FoxNews. I do accept Think Tank analysis such as Brookings, CSIS, HEritage etc.

Papers should be entitled (LastName_WK5.doc) and upload in the Assignments sections.  The Week 5 Midterm Assignment is due 11:55 pm ET of Sunday of Week 5. The assignment must follow APA guidelines (parenthetical citations) and be free of typographical, spelling and grammatical errors. Compliance with the above directions, quality of your analysis, and the SSGS Assignment Rubric for 500-600 Level Classes will be used to evaluate this assignment.