1. A framework for integrating a plurality of filter based policies to be applied to packets of data including at least a firewall policy and a security policy, comprising: a set of layer processes for identifying at least one parameter associated with a packet; a policy engine in communication with the set of layer processes; and a set of filters stored in the policy engine, each filter in the set of filters having filter conditions, an action identifying the firewall policy, and a policy context identifying the security policy.