THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                         (Annapolis, Maryland)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                       May 22, 1998

FACT SHEET

PROTECTING AMERICA'S CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURES: PDD 63

This Presidential Directive builds on the recommendations of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection. In October 1997, the Commission issued its report calling for a national effort to assure the security of the United States' increasingly vulnerable and interconnected infrastructures, such as telecommunications, banking and finance, energy, transportation, and essential government services.

Presidential Decision Directive 63 is the culmination of an intense, interagency effort to evaluate those recommendations and produce a workable and innovative framework for critical infrastructure protection. The President's policy:

Sets a goal of a reliable, interconnected, and secure information system infrastructure by the year 2003, and significantly increased security to government systems by the year 2000, by:

     Immediately establishing a national center to warn of and respond
     to attacks.

     Ensuring the capability to protect critical infrastructures from
     intentional acts by 2003.

Addresses the cyber and physical infrastructure vulnerabilities of the Federal government by requiring each department and agency to work to reduce its exposure to new threats;

Requires the Federal government to serve as a model to the rest of the country for how infrastructure protection is to be attained;

Seeks the voluntary participation of private industry to meet common goals for protecting our critical systems through public-private partnerships;

Protects privacy rights and seeks to utilize market forces. It is meant to strengthen and protect the nation?s economic power, not to stifle it.

Seeks full participation and input from the Congress.

PDD-63 sets up a new structure to deal with this important challenge:

     a National Coordinator whose scope will include not only critical
     infrastructure but also foreign terrorism and threats of domestic
     mass destruction (including biological weapons) because attacks on
     the US may not come labeled in neat jurisdictional boxes;

     The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) at the FBI 
     which will fuse representatives from FBI, DOD, USSS, Energy,
     Transportation, the Intelligence Community, and the private sector
     in an unprecedented attempt at information sharing among agencies
     in collaboration with the private sector.  The NIPC will also
     provide the principal means of facilitating and coordinating the
     Federal Government?s response to an incident, mitigating attacks,
     investigating threats and monitoring reconstitution efforts;

     Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) are encouraged 
     to be set up by the private sector in cooperation with the Federal
     government and modeled on the Centers for Disease Control and
     Prevention;

     A National Infrastructure Assurance Council drawn from private 
     sector leaders and state/local officials to provide guidance to 
     the policy formulation of a National Plan;

     The Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office will provide support 
     to the National Coordinator?s work with government agencies and 
     the private sector in developing a national plan.  The office will 
     also help coordinate a national education and awareness program, 
     and legislative and public affairs.

For more detailed information on this Presidential Decision Directive, contact the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (703) 696-9395 for copies of the White Paper on Critical Infrastructure Protection.

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