Potholes and Detours in the Road to Critical Infrastructure Protection Policy

The national strategy for the protection of critical infrastructure and key assets is not working due to a number of failed strategies, which this article examines in detail: federalism (separation of state and federal governmental controls) advocates that the first line of defense is local first responders; two years after the creation of the Department of Homeland security, and the consequent requirement that states perform vulnerability and risk analysis on their critical infrastructures, DHS has yet to define basic terminology needed for states to perform meaningful analysis (“vulnerability” “risk”), or precisely state the objectives of such analysis; private ownership of the majority of infrastructure assets has been used as an excuse to do nothing – a major myth that is not only wasteful of effort, but dangerous to the security of the nation; and finally, the notion that critical infrastructure sectors are so large and complex that only the highest-consequence, lowest-probability events can be prevented has led to further missteps in the road to critical infrastructure protection policy. This article ends with recommendations for policy changes that address these issues. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY: Ted G. Lewis, Ph.D. is Professor of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School and Academic Associate of the Homeland Defense and Security Master Degree program. He has 40 years of experience in academic, industrial, and advisory capacities ranging from an academic career since 1971 at the University of Missouri-Rolla, University of Louisiana, and Oregon State University, to Senior Vice President of Eastman Kodak Company, CEO and President of DaimlerChrysler Research and Technology, North America. Lewis has published over 30 books and 100 research papers, and is the author of the forthcoming book, Critical Infrastructure Protection in Homeland Security: Defending a Networked Nation, to be published by John Wiley & Sons, 2006. Rudy Darken is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and the Director of the Modeling, Virtual Environments, and Simulation (MOVES) Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Darken also directs modeling and simulation efforts for the Center for Homeland Defense and Security and serves as a Senior Editor of PRESENCE Journal, the MIT Press journal of teleoperators and virtual environments. He holds Master and Doctorate degrees in Computer Science from George Washington University.