The Password Is Security: Policymakers must recognize the interconnection between security and reliability. (Editorial).(Brief Article)

Kevin Heslin

The administration continues to urge all Americans to resume their normal lives. Pundits say that getting on with business is the best way to show the terrorists that they have failed. The President, after coming out for "anybody but the [editor's note: my beloved] Yankees" in the World Series, traveled to the Bronx to throw out the first ball before game three.

The President and the administration are right, and not simply because acceding to the terrorists means forfeiting our cushy standard of living. America's strength derives from its commitment to its ideals. Our failures to fully achieve these ideals only magnify our unique historical significance as a "shining city on a hill." We must resume our normal lives because they are the daily embodiment of our commitment to the ideals of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. I firmly believe that these precepts form the basis for America's military might--and our cushy way of life.

Still, the extraordinary security at Yankee Stadium and at the nation's airports and daily reports about new incidents of anthrax are examples of just how difficult resuming our normal lives may be.

I am pleased that the government has taken steps to secure the skies. I am pleased that steps have been taken to protect the physical integrity of America's nuclear plants and other generation, transmission, and distribution assets.

Yet, I must admit to worrying that America's zeal to protect the physical integrity of its assets will undermine the usefulness of those same assets. For example, long waits at airports could make short haul flights too expensive and time consuming to compete with trains and autos.

Similarly new rules designed to protect the energy infrastructure could introduce ...