Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy

Sept. 6-7, 2005.
Washington, D.C.

Working Group Whitepapers (PDF) -- see page 80 for “Protecting Critical Infrastructure” by John McCarthy, Colleen Hardy, and Maeve Dion.

Archived videos of individual speakers and panels.

The New America Foundation (NAF) organized this national policy forum, which addressed five main themes -- "underlying causes of global terrorism, strategies to confront terrorism, U.S. grand strategy, national security and civil liberties, and the promotion of democracy and human rights."  The conference sought "to encourage open and critical thinking about U.S. foreign policies generally, and counter-terrorism specifically, and to build consensus for strategies that effectively fight terrorism in accordance with core American values."

In the months preceding the forum, NAF convened five working groups composed of professionals from both the public and private sectors. Within each working group, three members were asked to present papers aligned with the themes of the working groups and designed to provoke discussion in advance of the policy forum.  These discussions were held online in private working group blogs.  Suzanne Spaulding, chair of the Homeland Security and Freedom Working Group, invited John McCarthy to draft a paper on critical infrastructure protection and its relationship to homeland security and freedom.

This working group debated various subjects, including (1) the need for a "comprehensive national strategy [for protecting homeland security] that … gives adequate attention to the role of the private sector and economic factors, sets forth clear goals and objectives, and provides a solid basis for establishing priorities and allocating resources" in accordance with a risk management plan; (2) the state of U.S. capabilities for responding to catastrophic events; (3) the importance of "protect[ing] privacy and due process while strengthening government's information awareness;" and (4) the adequacy of existing legal structures given the long-term threat of terrorism and current U.S. policy.