After 9/11, in conjunction with the passage of the PATRIOT Act, the Bush administration established a policy for the federal government to identify and prioritize “critical infrastructure” and to guard it against terrorist attacks. It was not until the Obama administration that the definition of what needed to be protected was expanded past terrorism to include to “all hazards.”

What does the future look like? We are just finishing the winter quarter, then will teach online for the spring quarter beginning late March.

I have now done two podcasts, and am growing more comfortable with answering questions on the fly.

Annie sat down with Ron Worman as part of his “The Great Conversation” series of podcasts .

Even as we move back to a traditional governance model at the federal level, our attention will be focused backward as the second impeachment trial of former President Trump begins in the Senate. Though House prosecutors will undoubtedly call a few witnesses, most points will be reinforced through the presentation of video gathered from a wide variety of sources, that track Trump’s words at the rally, through the march to the Capitol, and then the violent rioting that took place.

On January 20th, the peaceful transfer of power took place on the same steps of the United States Capitol that had seen a mob charge into the building on January 6th, after having been encouraged by now former President Trump. Most of the images we have from January 20th do not show the 26,000 National Guardsmen or the fencing and barriers around the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court building, but make no mistake: they were there for a reason.

It has been a difficult first week back to teach online. As has been my practice for about a year, I begin each course with a single slide that encapsulates the latest information I have on the pandemic. To that, I added an introduction to the SolarWinds data breach for my emerging cyber topics course on Monday. On Thursday, I created several slides on the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th for my information ethics, policy and law course, where we had started with an examination of the foundations of our government, including its seminal documents — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

I've been reading more about the sacrifices that Americans made without much hesitation during World War II. Many of those sacrifices can be traced to President Roosevelt’s powerful fireside chats (1933-1944), for which families gathered around a radio to listen. Newsreels shown in movie theatres added pictures to the wartime messages, showing us the beaches of Normandy, the ruins of London, and the wartime conferences between the Allies.

I am among the millions who got a good night’s sleep last night, a reprieve as it were from an ever-present state of anxiety that’s four years old. That weight is lifted with the election results and, though the country has still a rough road ahead, I am confident that a new administration will gather the very best hearts and minds to address the critical issues that challenge us.

I have been writing and speaking about operational risk for 20 years. For nearly four years, I have used my platform here as an operational risk expert to critique the current administration through the four lenses — people, processes, systems, and external events — that can assess how reputational or financial loss occurs in a company or an institution, or even a country.