The Domestic Security Section (DSS) was a component of the
United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...
that was focused on the prosecution of significant alien
smuggling organizations, complex
immigration fraud
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...
s, certain
violent crime
A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objecti ...
and
firearms offenses, crimes committed under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, and serious
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
violations such as
war crimes,
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
, and
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...
. DSS was the primary
DOJ office responsible for pursuing justice against perpetrators of human rights violations.
In 2009, the section was merged with the
Office of Special Investigations to form a new unit of the Criminal Division: the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section.
Former section chiefs
The Domestic Security Section, before reorganization, was headed by a section chief, who in turn reported to the assistant attorney general of the Criminal Division through a deputy assistant attorney general.
A former acting chief of the section,
John T. Morton, was appointed in mid-2009 by
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
as the
Assistant Security of Homeland Security for the
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration tha ...
.
Notable cases
* United States v.
Charles Taylor, Jr. (aka Chuckie Taylor, aka Charles McArthur Emmanuel, aka Roy Belfast) (son of
Charles Taylor, former warlord of Liberia)
* United States v.
Steven D. Green
* United States v.
Theodore Stevens
Theodore Fulton Stevens Sr. (November 18, 1923 – August 9, 2010) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1968 to 2009. He was the longest-serving Republican Senator in history at the time he left ...
(Domestic Security Section was added after allegations of prosecutorial misconduct against original prosecution team)
References
{{reflist
External links
Official DSS website
Office of Special Investigations