Losing the Public in Public/Private Critical Infrastructure Protection?

With the current majority of critical infrastructures in private hands and the responsibility for civil protection and emergency preparedness in public hands in most countries, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are essential for meeting contemporary threats. Following large-scale terrorist attacks in recent years, critical infrastructure protection schemes are becoming institutionalised in not only many countries but increasingly in regional and international bodies such as the EU, NAFTA, and APEC, many in direct response to the new threats to infrastructure terrorism is deemed to pose. Attributed largely to the threat of terrorism to critical infrastructures, meetings and decision-making regarding critical infrastructures are frequently closed to the public. In the United States for example, information sharing is governed under the Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCII) Program. 'Need to know' information-sharing is intended to not only reduce vulnerability to terrorism but to facilitate information-sharing from the private sector, which has at times been reticent to disclose sensitive information. This paper argues that PPPs for critical infrastructure protection are increasingly regional or international, rendering the term somewhat of a misnomer as local publics are often disengaged from the process, both by locality and by the fact that PPPs take place in increasingly exclusive domains. Questions of accountability are raised, following the observation that both political and corporate processes are increasingly exempt from public scrutiny. Further, corporate owners and operators of critical infrastructure - often multinational - are accountable to shareholders rather than an electorate, and privileged positions in regional PPPs can entail an advantage in terms of political influence as well as over other smaller business interests. The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America is couched in terms of increasing liberalisation and trade and security. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]