No doubt you’ve seen the flap over the items in DHS’s National Asset Database (NADB). The NADB is supposed to be a comprehensive, national asset inventory identifying sites that should be protected from terrorist attacks. But instead, according the AP article, "the department's database of vulnerable critical infrastructure and key resources included an insect zoo, a bourbon festival, a bean fest and a kangaroo conservation center."
Ouch.
According to the DHS Inspector General’s report that the AP story refers to, the NADB contains 77,069 assets (as of January 2006) that were submitted by the states. Take a look at DHS’s 2003 instructions to the states on what to submit as an asset:
"[T]ake immediate action to identify and increase the
security of critical infrastructure and key assets within your state. In selecting such infrastructure you should consider any system or asset that if attacked would result in catastrophic loss of life and/or catastrophic economic loss."
You can imagine the number and variety of assets that were submitted. And can you blame the states for wanting all their assets in that database? Heck, if I’d been in charge of submitting sites for my state, I’d put as many in there as I could.
Not surprisingly, in each subsequent year the submission guidelines were more detailed and focused on assets that everyone would agree are part of the nation’s critical infrastructure.
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