Title

Texas Regional Councils' Assessment of Security Vulnerabilities in Local Infrastructures

Document Type

Research Report

Comments

Department of Political Science, Texas State University-San Marcos, in Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Public Administration, Spring 2004.

Abstract

Since September 11, 2001 terrorism was the chief concern among US citizens. Government officials were concerned on how to protect their communities from terrorism and immediately created and implemented various strategies and policies. Security experts and government officials felt that a cohesive partnership between businesses, government officials, scholars, universities, and private citizens would foster lines of communication in combating terrorism. With the creation of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, various publications outlined strategies to protect critical infrastructures and key assets. These strategies foster the partnership between government officials, businesses, and private entities and provided ideas for proactive measures in securing critical infrastructures. These strategies provided an avenue for this study.

The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) Identify and describe the potential cyber vulnerabilities and physical threats of water and energy infrastructures that are specified within documents outlined by the Department of Homeland Security (2) Identify and describe proactive measures in disaster recovery and information sharing that are specified within the literature review and documents outlined by the Department of Homeland Security and (3) Assess the Texas water and energy infrastructure vulnerability from the point of view of Texas Regional Council leaders.