Vital Systems Security

There is an interesting conference coming up at the New School. For more information go here.

This summer the UN-initiated “Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction” met in Geneva. The event aimed at increasing political awareness and action on system-vulnerability questions at a global scale. It is interesting to think about this use of the term “platform.” It indicates a space that “brings together a wide range of actors in the various sectors of development and humanitarian work, and in the environmental and scientific fields related to disaster risk reduction.” However, it does not yet seem to point to a coherent way of organizing these diverse elements (including not only actors but also techniques and practices) toward a shared aim.

17-18 April, 2007 | Lancaster, UK

Deadline: 9 March, 2007
The ability to notice trouble and see scope for remedial action is crucial in many different contexts of work. Doctors, mechanics, help-line operators, firefighters, experimental scientists, the police, teachers, surveyors, computer programmers, and many other professionals do it. . Diagnostic practices are a pervasive and important feature of contemporary life. They matter, not least because it is through diagnosing and diagnoses that different perspectives - e.g. novices and experts, users, developers and designers, patients and healthcare professionals - meet. Diagnostic practices are integral to any move towards change. A deeper and broader understanding of diagnosing practices is highly desirable.

A conference hosted by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) is now underway with the purpose of bringing together business leaders and risk executives from industry to talk about ways to plan for a pandemic flu outbreak. We at ARC have had little in the way of concerted discussion about preparedness in the private sector — at least, I’ve not been aware of much chatter about it on our end.

As good second-order observers, we have probably noted that interesting distinctions have been made regarding “where” preparedness occurs. This emergent assemblage finds its most concrete form in the activities and practices located, at least in a certain sense, in the domains of public health, emergency management, and increasingly, homeland security. It is interesting that this assemblage works with and reifies distinctions between all this, and the private sector. In the American context, it seems that there exists a kind of rehashing of familiar debates about what “the state” can do, and what can and must be left to the private sector — as well as, for that matter, non-profits (have a look here for a recent report on Bay Area non-profits and disaster non-readiness). Hurricane Katrina, as we recall, produced the now-familiar mantra that “we [i.e., the state] can’t do everything” — which a truism, but an interesting one. Still we might ask, strictly as a matter of critical inquiry: why not?

Anyway, this is a ramble, but it’s headed, I think, towards the following question: Where are the fault lines between public and private in the context of preparedness and vital systems? Is this distinction valid, empirically? I think conceptual work in this area is crucial.

Might as well get started with the inter-collaborative connection-making here at ARC:

Nanotechnology for Security and Crime Prevention
Thursday 18th January 2007,
The Royal Society, London

“This one day event will examine a wide spectrum of new scientific developments taking place in the fight against crime. The latest discoveries and advances will be discussed, from anti-terrorism laser technology with the potential to revolutionise airport security to the latest research discoveries in nanoforensics.”