[Edit] cip Organization and Structure

The prospect of protecting the critical infrastructure of the United States can be a daunting task. The threats to our critical infrastructure can be directed to both commercial and government facilities. A viable protection program requires a partnership between the government and commercial sectors. The partnership must be genuine, mutual, and cooperative in order to obtain the agreed upon goals of CIP.

In order to establish just such a partnership, PDD-63, mandated the formation of a national structure for critical infrastructure protection. To accomplish this a process was developed called the National Infrastructure Assurance Plan, or NIAP. One of the primary tasks of the national CIP structure was the development of a comprehensive NIAP.

The different entities of the national CIP structure must work together to achieve national critical infrastructure protection. The national CIP structure is a partnership between the government and the public sectors of the critical infrastructure. There are, however, certain functions related to critical infrastructure protection that must be performed chiefly by the federal government. These are national defense, foreign affairs, intelligence, and law enforcement. Each lead agency for special functions appoints a senior official to serve as functional coordinator for the federal government. The United States Department of Defense is the lead agency and functional coordinator for national defense. DoD is responsible for working with other sectors in the national CIP structure to ensure the protection of the national defense infrastructure.

Each department and agency of the federal government is responsible for protecting its portion of the government's critical infrastructure. DoD is responsible for protecting its portion of the government's critical infrastructure. The defense critical infrastructure is made up of ten sectors that provide infrastructure services within DoD. As part of the CIP program, DoD has responsibilities that traverse both the national and department-wide critical infrastructure.

[Edit] Developing the niap

For each of the identified major sectors of the critical infrastructure, the federal government appointed a Sector Liaison Official from a designated Lead Agency. A private sector counterpart, a Sector Coordinator, was also identified. Together, the two sector representatives, one federal government and one corporate, were responsible for developing a sector NIAP.

In addition, each department and agency of the federal government was responsible for developing its own CIP plan for protecting its portion of the federal government's critical infrastructure. The federal department and agency plans were assimilated with the sector NIAPs to create one comprehensive National Infrastructure Assurance Plan. Additionally the national structure must ensure there is a national CIP program. This program includes responsibilities such as education and awareness, threat assessment and investigation, and research.