

Government officials respond to attack on electrical grid infrastructure









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RE: government's answer....
By ebakke on 4/30/2009 10:51:16 AM , Rating: 2
Stop scapegoating it as "The Government" and start taking responsibility for it as your government.
Quite a scathing post when you have absolutely no idea what actions (if any) the previous poster does to a "take responsibility" for his government. For all you know he may hold public office, organize like-minded individuals, or otherwise try to influence his government. Your post came across a lot like "he's a douche bag because I don't agree with him".

RE: government's answer....
By foolsgambit11 on 4/30/2009 11:57:06 AM , Rating: 2
And your post comes across as reaching to defend him at all costs because you agree with him.

From what I gathered, this article shouldn't raise a debate over big versus small government at all. The government isn't expanding its sphere. This isn't a case of "more laws", this is a law change which actually should reduce the amount of regulation involved in operating the grid by giving senior security managers greater discretion to tailor the response to the threat.

Grid security is a necessary role of government - hopefully we all agree that the government should protect vital infrastructure from attack. Given that, you can administer that role either by legislating procedures for every contingency, or by giving discretion to a bureaucrat (who hopefully will make his decisions based on expert advice), or a combination of both tactics. I personally think the combination method has the most benefits. Over-legislation risks the security apparatus not being able to respond dynamically enough. Relying on a bureaucrat's discretion risks an incompetent person failing to respond adequately to a threat. Balancing both tactics (done right) minimizes the downsides of each strategy (and done wrong it minimizes the strengths of each strategy).

This bill seems to be trying to balance regulation and initiative, although how well it does it I can't say. But it is not making government or bureaucracy larger (unless national security demands it) - it's just trying to make them better.

RE: government's answer....
By ebakke on 4/30/2009 1:52:17 PM , Rating: 2
I'm defending no one. FIT may be a douche who's spewing hate for no reason. He may be an outstanding citizen with a reason to gripe. Most likely, he's somewhere in the middle. I'm simply saying it's not fair to jump to a conclusion with partial information, and then chastise someone based on that conclusion.

On the actual topic of the article - couldn't agree with you more.


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