A new report by the GAO argues that the U.S. export control program, which restricts certain exports based on security concerns, is filled with vulnerabilities, and inadequate controls over things that one would not want to fall into the wrong hands. The problems are utterly famliar — the chronic difficulties of vital systems security in the United States. First, the regulation of exports is spread among different agencies, and it is up to exporters to figure out which one is doing the regulating. Second, there are limited mechainsms for enforcement. Third, there is great difficulty in keeping up with a rapidly changing definition of what constitutes a security threat. In sum, while the U.S. government focuses on the malign proliferators of weaponizable materials there is little assurance that the source might be us.
COLLABORATORY: VITAL SYSTEMS SECURITY
The Vital Systems Security collaboration examines how, today, security is being constituted as an object of knowledge, intervention, and political reflection. It proposes that the security of vital systems such as energy, transportation, communication and health is one norm in relationship to which security is being reproblematized. A central goal of the collaboration is to examine these issues through collective, conceptually driven inquiry that addresses rapidly developing contemporary problems.
