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lincoln network

The umbrella organization over Studio, Deployed and Policy seeking to bridge the gap between innovators and policymakers for a freer and more abundant future.

lincoln studio

A product studio that partners with donors to create new technology products to solve policy and social problems. The liberty skunkworks.

lincoln deployed

A full-service digital agency that specializes in product strategy, design, and software engineering, for customers that align with our mission.

lincoln policy

A boutique think tank that works with policymakers and tech innovators to promote market-oriented ideas to stengthen American innovation.

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July 27, 2021 | Bonnie Kavoussi

The Case for a Longevity Moonshot

As the government debates spending more money on community college and the child tax credit, there is one form of government spending that could significantly improve the lives of every single person on earth. It’s time for the U.S. government to devote significant resources to finding a cure for aging and extending the human lifespan.
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June 28, 2021 | Dan Lips

Cost-Effective Policy Options to Help States Manage Growing Cybersecurity Risks

State and local governments are facing growing cyber threats. From ransomware attacks to data breaches, local governments are on the frontlines of the global cyber conflict that remains a top national security threat, according to the Director of National Intelligence.  Like all organizations, state and local governments have limited resources to manage cybersecurity risks. Nationally,
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June 24, 2021 | Zach Graves

Funding Bill Takes a Giant Leap to Rebuild Congressional Capacity

Today at noon the House Appropriations Committee’s Legislative Branch Subcommittee will mark up its funding bill for fiscal year 2022. This legislation constitutes a big leap towards addressing the devastating decline Members of Congress have inflicted upon the Legislative Branch over the past quarter century, including a nearly 40 percent staffing reduction at committees and
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June 22, 2021 | Zach Graves

Expanding the FTC’s role to counter China

The House Judiciary Committee’s package of anti-tech monopoly legislation heads to markup tomorrow. Included in it are several proposals to strengthen the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (DOJ-ATR), the two primary US competition enforcement agencies. Out of this package, the two bills that are least controversial, and thus most
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June 16, 2021 | Zach Graves

House anti-monopoly proposals seek to radically reshape the tech sector

Following the House Judiciary Committee’s year-long investigation into digital market competition in the 116th Congress, a group of House lawmakers are advancing a bipartisan package of bills aimed at reining in big tech firms—namely, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. What the bills do If enacted, this package would dramatically reshape the US innovation ecosystem,
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June 16, 2021 | Zach Graves

Building state capacity at FTC and DOJ

Within the House’s package of anti-monopoly proposals, the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2021 is the odd one out. It has a longer legislative history, stronger bipartisan support, is relatively incremental, and is not explicitly targeted at big tech. Despite some nay-saying from the peanut gallery, as well as a more fraught political environment
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June 14, 2021 | Dan Lips

A New Strategy to Use Technology to Promote American Values Abroad

President Biden’s ongoing trip to Europe, including meetings with the G-7 and NATO, has highlighted the many challenges facing the world’s leading democracies including the ongoing global democratic recession. The past year marked “the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom,” according to the non-profit Freedom House. Writing in the Washington Post before the
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June 14, 2021 | Marshall Kosloff

The Realignment Conference

Join The Realignment podcast’s Marshall Kosloff and Saagar Enjeti for a live and in-person conference in Miami, Florida. Much like the podcast, this conference will explore the realignment reshaping America and the world — and what it means for politics, technology, foreign policy, and the ways we live and work. The conference will bring together
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June 9, 2021 | Dan Lips

Questions for Thursday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing On “Atrocities in Xinjiang: Where Do We Go From Here?”

On Thursday, the subcommittees of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be holding a hearing to examine the People’s Republic of China’s atrocities in Xinjiang. Senators will hear testimony from leading human rights experts about the ongoing genocide occuring in the region. In March, the State Department issued its annual report on global human rights
Blog, Letters & Testimony

May 26, 2021 | Alexiaa Jordan

Policy Hackers Fellowship Application Now Open for 2021-2022

We believe the future should be better represented in Washington. That’s why we’re creating Policy Hackers, to develop a new cohort of innovation policy advocates. Applications are open from now until July 18, 2021. Policy Hackers is a year-long, non-resident fellowship program for tech professionals (Please Note: This Fellowship is not for people who already
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May 24, 2021 | Joel Thayer

Broadband Plan Needs a Lighter Touch

Democratic legislatures and the Biden Administration are correct to focus on closing the so-called “digital divide”—a phenomenon that describes the disparity of those without broadband access. But propping up artificial competition, using European public-utility models, and having highly prescriptive technical mandates to achieve this goal have shown to widen the divide than close it. Last
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May 4, 2021 | Zach Graves

GAO’s Next 100 Years: Oversight, Insight, and Foresight

2021 year marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). After World War I, Congress sought to control growing government expenditures and debt and created GAO to assess the legality and adequacy of government expenditures. Today, GAO provides critical support to Congress through its audits, legal opinions, and analyses that
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April 30, 2021 | Zach Graves

Francis Fukuyama on Tech and Democracy

I recently joined American Purpose editor-in-chief Jeff Gedmin for a discussion with Francis Fukuyama on technology and democracy. Watch the full video below. Francis Fukuyama is chairman of the editorial board of American Purpose. He is Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), director of the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International
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April 29, 2021 | Dan Lips

Former Comptroller General David Walker on GAO’s 100th Anniversary

In 2021, the Government Accountability Office is marking its 100th anniversary serving as Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog. Former Comptroller General David Walker led GAO from 1998 to 2008–initiating a series of lasting reforms to strengthen GAO’s value and return-on-investment for Congress and American taxpayers.  In a recent interview, I asked former Comptroller General Walker about his
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April 12, 2021 | Dan Lips

How Can Congress Improve GAO’s Performance?

An Interview with Deloitte Analysts William Eggers and Steve Berman             The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office issues more than a thousand recommendations to Congress and executive agencies each year to improve operations and increase fiscal efficiency. According to the Comptroller General’s annual estimates, the Congressional watchdog agency routinely achieves a return-on-investment of more than $100
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March 19, 2021 | Dan Lips

Modernizing Oversight of Federal Spending Could Save Taxpayers Billions

Days before Congress passed the $1.9 trillion emergency spending package, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a grim snapshot of the nation’s fiscal condition. CBO warned that the “growing debt burden could increase the risk of a fiscal crisis and higher inflation as well as undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar, making it more costly to finance public and private
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March 4, 2021 | Zach Graves

The Promise and Perils of Interoperability

Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats now support increased regulation of the tech industry. Responding to this pressure, policymakers on both sides of the aisle have become increasingly critical of big tech, and are looking to advance new legislation. However, because their underlying grievances are different—with the right focusing on anti-conservative bias, and the left
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March 4, 2021 | Dan Lips

Final Recommendations from the National Security Commission on AI

The global technology competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China becomes more evident by the day.  President Xi Jinping is expected to call for a new 5-year plan this week for the PRC to achieve technology independence from the West at an annual meeting of the legislature.  On Monday, the Biden
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February 19, 2021 | Garrett Johnson

Lincoln Network’s 2020 funding breakdown

Lincoln Network is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was founded in 2014 with a mission to help bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and DC from a pro-market, pro-innovation perspective. Lincoln’s founders recognized that the government needs, and the people it serves deserve, new ideas and technologies to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness. We founded
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February 17, 2021 | Jordan McGillis

Red Lines, Finish Lines, and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

Twelve months from now, two thousand athletes representing almost 100 countries are slated to march under their national flags into Beijing National Stadium to mark the opening of the 2022 Winter Olympics. Beijing National Stadium—the Bird’s Nest—was the focal point of the 2008 Summer Games and hosted that year’s opening ceremony, an awe-inducing tribute to
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February 16, 2021 | Joe Kane

5G Needs Better Markets, Not More Buildout Requirements

Behind all those Super Bowl commercials about “5G” has been a years-long push to get the wireless frequencies needed for the next generation of wireless service ready for widespread use. One of the biggest recent steps in that direction is the Federal Communications Commission’s auction of licenses to operate in the lower portion of the
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January 28, 2021 | Alexiaa Jordan

Expert Advice for the Biden Administration’s Approach to Semiconductor Policy

Over the past four years, the semiconductor industry has focused on U.S. trade policy with China. Congress and the Trump Administration strengthened federal laws to restrict foreign investment, control technology transfer, and established new federal research incentives. This pattern looks to be continuing as President Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Commerce committed to
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January 26, 2021 | Dan Lips

The Biden Administration Must Answer China’s Semiconductor Challenge

President Biden’s nominee for Commerce Secretary testified to Congress today that the new administration will be firm in responding to China’s unfair trade practices. Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo told the Senate said the administration will “take aggressive trade enforcement actions to combat unfair trade practices from China and other nations that undercut American manufacturing.”
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December 16, 2020 | Dan Lips

Rethinking the Future of US Cybersecurity After the Latest Data Breach

5 Questions National Policymakers Should Be Asking  This week, IT-firm SolarWinds announced that it had likely suffered “a highly sophisticated, targeted and manual supply chain attack by an outside nation state,” which put the information systems of 18,000 of its customers, including federal agencies, at risk. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS issued
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December 8, 2020 | Joel Thayer

FCC Moving to Update Rules for Marketing and Importation Equipment Is Good for 5G and IoT

The United States’ success in the race to 5G is critical, but enabling the Internet of things (IoT) ecosystem is equally important. This Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) in particular has made considerable efforts to expedite the deployment of 5G networks, either through reducing  barriers to building infrastructure or through opening up key spectrum
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November 10, 2020 | Dan Lips

Why Congress Should Fully Fund Its Watchdog

An extra $76 million in funding for GAO could yield $7 billion in savings based on recent performance The lame-duck session is underway. As the clock winds down on the 116th Congress, lawmakers have a busy agenda for its final weeks–from considering a new emergency spending bill to NDAA and a December 11th deadline to
Blog, Uncategorized

November 2, 2020 | Dan Lips

Listen to the Intelligence Community’s Warnings Ahead of the Election

Voting is one the most important civic responsibilities in the United States. In 2020, being a responsible voter also involves understanding the rules of the election, the threat foreign interference, and reporting potential wrongdoing to the appropriate authorities if necessary. FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe recently held a press
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October 29, 2020 | Sean Roberts

Interviews with Election Officials from Across the Country

What Should the Voter Do? Over the past month, I have been interviewing a cross section of election officials from around the country. These are election officials with a deep insight into the election system. Being so close to the election, Lincoln Network wanted to help American voters by presenting the perspective of the public
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