Maryann Goldman, who worked cracking crime families in New York City, has returned to her Hudson Valley roots to spearhead the InfraGard program, an FBI public-private collaboration for national infrastructure protection.
Membership in InfraGard can be a unique opportunity for both business and government to unite in a cooperative effort to protect critical infrastructure in the community. Water, agriculture, transportation, healthcare, information technology ”“ anything that affects the public can be subject to terrorist trickery, said Goldman.
The Internet is especially enticing to terrorists, who work diligently to infect the global interconnect system. “Nobody would think a program like Club Penguin (an interactive children”™s website) is harmful,” said Goldman. “But any time you go online, you could be opening doors” to people you”™d rather not have in the club.
Goldman has been making the rounds of chambers of commerce in the Hudson Valley, visiting Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce on March 18 at the Poughkeepsie Grand and addressing more than 125 Rockland Business Association members the following day at the New York Country Club in New Hempstead .
With 15,000 FBI agents spread across 50 states, their numbers may not be daunting to terrorist organizations, but they do have backup: 800,000 law enforcement officers. “Now, imagine 20 or 30 million Americans participating in watching over our nation along with our FBI agents and police force. Terrorists would think twice ”“ and that”™s exactly what the program accomplishes.”
Goldman, a mother of three, says she is revving up the outreach organization originally started in 1998 and which took on special meaning after the September 11 attacks. With chapters growing across the nation and here in New York, the Hudson Valley is being introduced to its own “national guard,” said Goldman, who can be reached by phone at (914) 989-6048.
Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester counties are the five counties she hopes will be willing to climb on board and make sure planes, trains, buses and yes, our local schools, are safe from people who may have a taste for terrorism.
