stewardship of critical infrastructure
this is questions, really. i don’t have the answers.
first, what is “critical”? who decides? is it the domain of the department of homeland security to designate something “critical”? once something is critical, who is in charge of running it? securing it?
it seems no one can “do right” by critical infrastructure. a quick informal survey:
the us mass transit infrastructure was pretty much destroyed by corporate interests
the us road infrastructure is in “disrepair” under the stewardship of government entities.
the electrical distribution system is quasi-private and falls apart in small spaces often, and in dramatic form recently
the email infrastructure isn’t really under anyone’s stewardship, and is becoming increasingly useless under the weight of spam.
the air transport infrastructure is an interesting mix of private carriers and quasi-public facilities and public security, and it’s barely viable.
the us rail infrastructure is also a mixed bag, but commercial passenger rail is an economic disaster.
the pipeline and fuel distribution infrastructure is mostly private, and it occasionally fails in dramatic form.
public? private? quasi-private? regulation? deregulation? reregulation? privatization? nationalization? it seems we’ve tried pretty much every combination in some form or another, and we can’t quite “get it right.” sure, these are complex systems. and we have complex tools to run them. but are they too complex?
the question the lawyers want to answer is “who is to blame?” but the question i want to answer is “have we exceeded our capacity to manage?”