Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
When I was Secretary, I wanted to talk to governors, or police chiefs, or whomever we were hearing things from that may have required them to take action. There is some intelligence from time to time we think is necessary to share. It's not always actionable intelligence, but it would be good for them to know. Again, New York is so different. Sometimes you tell Ray Kelly what's going on and he could say, "Well I could have told you that a couple days ago." He has his own pretty good network around here. But the fact of the matter is, being able to share information with the private sector, at some point in time well, we'd need to be able to trust one another. I frankly think we over-compartmentalize and over-categorize some of this information anyhow. The federal government will never be able to mandate responsibility. It must empower the private sector. People will accept responsibility if they are empowered to do so. I have to be blunt about the consequences of inaction. When businesses help government keep its country/communities moving forward, there is humanitarian and good-neighbor benefit certainly, but it's also central to the private sector's bottom line. And that is okay; they're allowed to be profitable. One of the challenges I think we have is to make sure that the public sector is ready to do its job and the private sector is ready to do its job. Some companies have embraced that responsibility to build inherent redundancy and resiliency, so not only will it protect their shareholders, but in case they are called upon by their government, they will be able to respond quickly. Not everybody has that mindset. But a catastrophic or even moderate disaster or an attack can wipe out millions or billions of dollars in revenue, and the inability to recover if there's no back up or offsite contingency plans in place is huge. Verizon, like a lot of companies after 9/11, absorbed not hundreds of millions, but a billion-plus dollars' worth of losses. Its leaders didn't ask the government to compensate or reimburse them, they just absorbed it and moved on. And by and large, that's the mindset of most private sector entities. And so we need to understand that the kind of collaboration that is absolutely critical to our ability to prepare and prevent, but also to respond and recover, is full partnership with our friends in the private sector. We all have to manage the risk before it manages us. Candidly, one of the biggest challenges of risk management is simply having the discussion. Nobody likes to suggest that they are vulnerable or open to risk, whether it's the public or the private sector. But we all need to get beyond the "it won't happen here" syndrome. Some of the dollars you need in order to build a redundancy and resiliency in the system to help the public sector is viewed by some as an expense. But in my view you need to quit looking it as an expense, but as an investment. I will tell you, ladies and gentleman, at the end of the day, one of the challenges that has been so well articulated by both panels today, is to build on the goodwill of both the public and the private sector, recognizing that the private sector has, by and large, greater infrastructure, greater resiliency, greater capability to assist this country in times of a hazardous event, or any kind of event. I quite frankly think we have made enormous progress over the past 10 years in this regard. Good hearts, good people, are part of the community. The private sector wants to be involved in the community when it comes to planning because it will certainly be involved in response and recovery if asked. I am quite convinced that in the 21st 15