Re: RFC 2527 Physical Security Controls Question

[Tony Bartoletti <azb@xxxxxxxx>]

At 08:22 PM 12/14/1999 -0500, TMetzinger@aol.com wrote:
>John Kennedy and Lynn Wheeler both made excellent points about the potential 
>need for absolute top-grade physical security in a commercial CA operation.  
>It all seems to come down (as always) to risk assessment and balancing the 
>cost of security against it's benefits.
>
>In the commercial world, especially in the financial and medical sectors, the 
>potential liability for a CA operator could be enormous, easily justifying 
>the cost of physical security measures rivalling that found around weapons of 
>mass destruction.
>
>This brings up an interesting question though...  For a government, it's very 
>easy to designate a resourse as being sufficiently valuable to authorize the 
>use of deadly force to protect it - try to get close to a stealth aircraft 
>sometime. For commercial applications, however, even where billions of 
>dollars may be at stake, it's harder (if not impossible) to implement that 
>final line of security.  
>
>So for you non-government types, would your CA physical security include 
>lethal defenses?  Can anyone think of any application for a non-government CA 
>that would require such defenses?  I'm not talking about just armed guards 
>here...  I'm talking about defenses that would kill an unauthorized 
>individual who entered protected space BEFORE they did any damage besides 
>entering that space. 

Tim,

I'm a University of California employee, so I will assume I'm not a
"government type" :)

It occurs to me that structures warranting the kind of protection we
are talking about would have several layers to penetrate.  Consequently,
an intruder would likely have to reveal themselves as bearing lethal
means in the course of an attempted apprehension by the "guards".
If the intruder brandishes a gun, I don't believe the guards need an
act of congress to use deadly force.

So we are really talking about an "army-sized" assault upon a facility.
Here, perhaps there are issues to be addressed.  If a breach of the
perimeter causes inner safeguards to kick in, such as (well-marked)
electric fences, so-to-speak, are these means allowed?

In general, are there non-lethal means that are effective when
applied with sufficient extension? (tear gas, paralyzing fields, etc.)

Granted, if the facility could be taken out by a 500 lb bomb delivered
by a private plane, I don't think one will be able to fire anti-aircraft
munitions under threat, but then I'm not an expert in law ;)

___tony___





Tony Bartoletti                                             LL
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