December is Critical Infrastructure Protection Month

Yesterday President Obama declared December to be Critical Infrastructure Protection Month, according to a proclamation on WhiteHouse.gov; the proclamation will be published in the Federal Register later this week to make it official. As with all such Presidential Proclamations, the action is more symbolic than substantive.

The President calls “upon the people of the United States to recognize the importance of protecting our Nation's resources and to observe this month with appropriate events and training to enhance our national security and resilience”. While every month should be a month to conduct ‘appropriate events and training’ it is optimistic at best to think that there will be spare time and energy for such activity in December, a month of celebrations and partying.

Fortunately, the professionals at every level of the extensive protection and response system in this country will still be on the job this month, doing their thing for protecting critical infrastructure. If you see these stalwarts, from what ever level of government, standing in the cold protecting us or waiting to respond to our distress, take a moment to thank them for their efforts to protect us and our way of life. They deserve our thanks; we certainly don’t pay them enough.

Hopefully there will be no successful events initiated by those wishing to disturb the celebrations of the season; events that would focus the burning eye of public scrutiny on critical infrastructure protection. If there are no such events, it will be because of the efforts of those that work in infrastructure protection every day, not because of this proclamation. I’m sure that President Obama is aware of and appreciates that fact. I just wish he had taken the time to specifically salute them in this Presidential Proclamation.