Letters, power lines, and other dangerous things : the politics of infrastructure security / Ryan Ellis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ellis, Ryan, author.

Series:

Infrastructures.

Infrastructures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Infrastructure (Economics)--Security measures--United States.

Infrastructure (Economics).

Infrastructure (Economics)--Security measures.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2020]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

"In the long-shadow of September 11, 2001, infrastructures have undergone a significant reorganization. Letters, Power Lines, and Other Dangerous Things examines how new fears and worries over security have transformed the material and social outlines of infrastructure. The book follows three infrastructures-the postal system, freight rail, and the electric power system-and documents the subtle and explicit changes that have remade these systems. The book places the rise of "critical infrastructure protection"-a buzzword, a governing logic, and a multi-billion dollar funding priority-within a larger historical framework. Drawing from thousands of pages of regulatory filings, court documents, and other governmental documents, the book pieces together a larger story about risk and infrastructure. It identifies the political origins of infrastructure vulnerability-demonstrating how decades of political and economic restructuring ("deregulation") created system that were both politically unaccountable and vulnerable to systemic failure; and it examines how a cross-section of actors-including workers, civic groups, city councils, bureaucrats, and others-attempted to leverage new fears about infrastructure danger into reinvigorated systems of public accountability. Put another way, it examines the social and technical processes that made infrastructure dangerous; and then follows the ways in which these "dangerous things" were made safe and secure. The book offers a reminder that infrastructures always order they organize different publics, uses, ideas about what and who a system is for, into a tentative hierarchy. And security presents an opportunity to revisit and in some case remake these orders. The book provides a window into how infrastructures are made and remade sometimes in surprising and contradictory ways"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

I The Political Origins of Infrastructure Vulnerability p. 29

1 Stumbling toward Resilience: The Overlooked Virtues of Regulation p. 31

2 The Political Origins of Infrastructure Vulnerability: The Hidden Vices of Deregulation p. 87

II Ubiquitous Targets: Infrastructure Security after September 11 p. 137

3 Imagination Unbound: Risk, Politics, and Post-9/11 Anxiety p. 139

4 Infected Mail: Labor, Commerce, and the 2001 Anthrax Attacks p. 165

5 Green Security: The Environmental Movement, the Transportation of Hazardous Materials, and the War on Terror p. 185

6 Regulating Cybersecurity: The Unexpected Remaking of Electric Power p. 209.

Notes:

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

9780262357777

0262357771

OCLC:

1130234388

Access Restriction:

Open Access Unrestricted online access