Commentary

Google’s Decision Not to List Truth Social Raises Political Questions

September 13, 2022 | Jonathon Hauenschild

This piece was originally published in Newsweek. Social media platforms are having a tough time. First, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt released a trove of documents strongly suggesting the companies coordinated with the government to suppress information about COVID-19. Then, Google announced it would not list Truth Social in its Play Store due to “insufficient content moderation” practices, particularly those terms prohibiting violent

Screen Test

September 9, 2022 | Jon Askonas

This piece was originally published in Return. For years, Americans and Europeans have been warned of the growing power and reach of Russian information warfare. From the Brexit referendum to the election of Donald Trump, there was hardly an important election Putin hadn’t hacked. Western experts had warned for years about hybrid warfare, blending disinformation, astroturfed

China Is Buying the Farm

September 9, 2022 | Lars Schönander

This piece was originally published in The Wall Street Journal. Alarms went off in Washington when the Fufeng Group, a Chinese agricultural company, bought 300 acres of land and set up a milling plant last spring in Grand Forks, N.D. The plant is a 20-minute drive from an Air Force base that, according to North Dakota Sen.

You Are Already in the Metaverse

September 6, 2022 | Jon Askonas

This piece was originally published in Unherd. The metaverse is going to change everything. And it’s already here. But what the hell is it? In 2021, it seemed that every major technology executive took a stance on the metaverse, a new concept for the internet. Mark Zuckerberg went so far as to change his company’s name

August 16, 2022 | Luke Hogg

This piece was originally published in The Hill. With the August recess underway, it is time to take stock of Congress’ remaining agenda. One big item that is still on Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) public to-do list is the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA). After promising a floor vote on the bill earlier this summer, the

Would You Die for the DAO?

August 5, 2022 | Antonio García Martínez

This piece was originally published on Substack. Alas!Lonely sits the cityOnce great with people!She that was great among nationsIs become like a widow;The princess among statesIs become a thrall. -Lamentations 1:1 Recently, I experienced a social novelty. Anna Gát, founder of a roving social club and literary salon named Interintellect, very graciously invited me to one of

August 2, 2022 | Jonathon Hauenschild

This piece was originally published in The Hill. Is Google at war with Republican candidates? The Republican National Committee and several others seem to think so, as it claims delivery of its emails to Gmail inboxes is nearly 0 percent, costing the party and candidates about $2 billion since 2019. The claims are based on a report from North Carolina State

The Right to Never Be Forgotten

August 1, 2022 | Antonio García Martínez

This piece was originally published on Substack. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. -Luke 12:3 Web 3 is the reverse of web 2 in severals ways, and that ‘flippening’ can be disorienting. Take the

Ukraine’s Cyber-War Shows Us the Future

July 26, 2022 | Geoff Cain

This piece was originally published on Substack. A 19-year-old computer hacker invited me into his home in Lviv, Ukraine, ready to show off his weaponry: three large monitors from which he coordinated cyber-attacks into Russia’s increasingly closed-off internet. It was March 2022, and he wanted to strike back at Russia’s opening missile salvos. But he

Cutting It as a Tech Writer

July 22, 2022 | Geoff Cain

This piece was originally published on Substack. Another week, another media blow-up. Yesterday, an editor at The New Yorker, Erin Overbey, accused the magazine of retaliating against her for protesting gender inequalities, when it opened a “performance review” into her work. She claimed her boss, editor-in-chief David Remnick, inserted two errors into her articles during the performance

On Hostage Diplomacy

July 20, 2022 | Geoff Cain

This piece was originally published on Substack. Hostage-taking has become a feature of diplomacy involving authoritarian governments. Today, President Biden signed an executive order that will allow the United States to sanction people or governments that take Americans hostage, and will set up a warning system for Americans planning a trip. This comes as WNBA

July 20, 2022 | Dan Lips

This piece was originally published in National Review. With interest rates rising, the federal government’s debt problem is about to get much worse. The Congressional Budget Office recently warned that rising interest rates, projected trillion-dollar deficits, and the ballooning national debt will cause federal spending on debt payments to “increase substantially.” The federal government’s interest payments are projected to

July 18, 2022 | Luke Hogg

By Jonathon Hauenschild and Luke Hogg With the August recess approaching and the November elections looming, the window is rapidly closing for the current Congress to enact legislation updating antitrust laws to hold big technology companies accountable. That could be good news for American consumers, since the flagship bill under consideration in the Senate might force

A Bipartisan Vote for Good Government

July 15, 2022 | Dan Lips

This piece was originally published in The Hill. On Tuesday, Congress proved that lawmakers can still work together on passing good government reforms when the House of Representatives passed the Improving Government for America’s Taxpayers Act. The vote shows growing bipartisan support for addressing the nation’s fiscal challenges by using nonpartisan oversight to reform government programs.

July 12, 2022 | Luke Hogg

Conservatives across the country have grown increasingly distrustful of large online platforms. From content suppression during COVID-19 to the deplatforming of Parler to large-scale data breaches, high-profile incidents have led many on the center-right to question Big Tech’s influence over our lives. With Republicans poised to gain seats in Congress in November, lawmakers should be looking ahead to the 118th

July 5, 2022 | Dan Lips

By Zach Graves and Dan Lips TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media apps, with more than 80 million U.S.-based active users, including an astounding 70 percent of all American teenagers. Through its rise in popularity, the app has been plagued by a series of security and privacy concerns related to its parent company, ByteDance, and its

Japan’s Lessons for America

June 22, 2022 | Lars Schönander

This piece was originally posted on Substack. After a decades-long hiatus, industrial policy is back in vogue. The Biden administration will invoke a law passed in 1950, the Defense Production Act, originally designed to build America after World War II, to raise production of everything from solar panels to baby formula. Industrial policy could address the shortages that

June 21, 2022 | Luke Hogg

A coalition of lawmakers and advocacy groups is making its final push to pass antitrust legislation targeted at large tech platforms before the end of the year. But in the rush to rein in Big Tech, many conservatives have signed on to a bill that would do little to address their underlying concerns. Rather than

June 2, 2022 | Geoff Cain

“We are all in a social network,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking with Lincoln Network senior fellow Geoffrey Cain in WIRED. “This is our world now. It is divided. The internet is a reality.” On May 18, our senior fellow Geoffrey Cain sat down for a rare, hour-long interview with President Zelensky at the presidential

June 2, 2022 | Geoff Cain

Before he was actually president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian, starred as Ukraine’s fictional president in his three-season political satire Servant of the People. He played a junior high teacher who asked his students to leave the classroom one day so he could have a word with a school administrator. In private, he launched a tirade against

May 26, 2022 | Dan Lips

By Dan Lips and Deepesh Chaudhari On May 14, the foreign ministers of the G7 issued a statement condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and reiterating the importance of internet freedom. The statement read, in part, that the G7 nations would remain committed to promoting “the exercise of freedom of opinion and expression and access to reliable information from

May 24, 2022 | Lars Schönander

In 2022, the United States has entered a new era of great power competition and energy policy challenges. As Congress works to reform policies to address emerging threats, improving transparency of foreign energy investment in the United States should be a major priority. In the past, the United States recognized the risks of foreign energy

May 18, 2022 | Luke Hogg

Just over two years ago, as the world was confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States hit a record unemployment rate of 14.7 percent. Since then, the U.S. labor market rebounded as everyday life has mostly returned to normal. But digging into the latest unemployment data reveals a thought-provoking trend that should have sweeping implications for U.S.

May 11, 2022 | Lars Schönander

Acoalition of dozens of former national security officials including former cabinet secretaries wrote to Congress this week urging lawmakers to use the ongoing conference negotiations of competitiveness legislation to allow more foreigners with science, technology, engineering and math expertise to work in the United States. “In today’s technology competition, the most powerful and enduring asymmetric

May 11, 2022 | Dan Lips

From cyber attacks to overseeing hundreds of billions in federal spending, state and local governments face growing technology challenges. A new bipartisan Senate bill would reform a half-century-old law to allow federal agencies to provide technology assistance to state and local partners and encourage greater cooperation between government agencies. Under the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act of 1968,

May 9, 2022 | Luke Hogg

The United States has long been a global leader in innovation. The birth and growth of new distributed ledger technologies (DLT) is one area in which the strength of American inventiveness and entrepreneurial spirit has spawned a technological sea change. But the United States cannot afford to become complacent as global rivals work to develop

Can the Senate See the Future?

May 6, 2022 | Lars Schönander

U.S. Senate committees have various responsibilities. They evaluate nominees for executive branch positions, conduct oversight, and review legislation. Committees use hearings as a primary tool to find facts, analyze policy issues, and inform legislative and oversight actions. But a review of Senate-hearing witness-testimony data raises questions about lawmakers’ ability to anticipate national issues before they

April 27, 2022 | Luke Hogg

As the midterm elections approach, immigration policy is back in the news. With rising migration at the southern border and the Biden administration’s pending decision to lift Title 42 public health restrictions, illegal immigration will likely be a campaign issue in the months ahead. But there’s one aspect of immigration policy that deserves strong bipartisan

April 25, 2022 | Luke Hogg

It’s time for the United States to wake up to the global challenges ahead, and the rivalry between liberal Western values and growing illiberal threats. Over the past few years, the European Union has taken an aggressive posture on tech regulation, targeting large U.S. tech firms and showing little regard for the global implications of

April 18, 2022 | Dan Lips

With millions of people filing their federal taxes this week, it’s a good time to check in on the nation’s finances. Last year, the federal government ran a nearly $2.8 trillion deficit. That pushed publicly held debt to an incomprehensible $24 trillion , or more than $70,000 per person. Washington is projected to spend at least $1

April 18, 2022 | Lars Schönander

Some books are timely because their authors felt a need to address a specific issue at a specific moment. Other books are timely because history just so happened to make the subject matter relevant. Nicholas Mulder’s The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War falls into the latter category. Mulder sets to

April 11, 2022 | Luke Hogg

One of the most important components of the U.S.-China rivalry for tech dominance is the global competition for talented scientists and engineers. Federal legislation currently being negotiated could help give the United States a competitive edge if an important provision makes it into the final package. For months, Congress has been hard at work on legislation aimed at “[turbocharging] America’s scientific

How Punishing Big Tech Harms America

April 5, 2022 | Luke Hogg

Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing its support for legislation that would ban large tech platforms (primarily Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta) from a range of “discriminatory” behaviors such as self-preferencing their own products. The letter argues that the American Innovation and Choice Online Act

April 4, 2022 | Dan Lips

The 117th Congress may be remembered as a time of intense polarization. But the leaders of a bipartisan House committee have been operating below the national political radar to improve how Congress works. Their latest effort has the potential to deliver substantial taxpayer savings. Formed in 2019, the House Select Committee on the Modernization of

March 18, 2022 | Dan Lips

Cybersecurity researchers reported last week that Chinese hackers have breached the networks of six state governments since May. The news adds to the challenges facing state and local governments managing growing cybersecurity risks, including widespread ransomware attacks. The biggest cyber risk facing state governments is ransomware attacks. This entails hackers seeking to extract ransom payments by compromising

March 18, 2022 | Lars Schönander

Russian state-backed entities have contributed millions of dollars to organizations in the United States in order to gain influence. Unfortunately, at American post-secondary institutions, it is difficult to track where money is coming from. Section 117 of the Higher Education Act governs how universities report foreign contributions they receive. A review of the Department of Education’s current

March 18, 2022 | Lars Schönander

Last week, Sen. Marco Rubio sent letters to 22 university presidents calling on them to end partnerships with Chinese universities that are aiding Beijing’s military technology initiatives. The problem is real. Unfortunately, Congress and the public have limited visibility into how college campuses are being exploited. Since 1986, federal law has required postsecondary institutions to

March 1, 2022 | Nathan Uldricks

This piece was originally published in the American Mind. In November, the Biden Administration released the President’s Management Agenda Vision, outlining its agenda to overhaul the federal workforce and its operations. At the top level are some goals all Americans should like, such as improving how citizens interact with the federal bureaucracy and rebuilding domestic industrial capacity. Other goals, as

September 14, 2021 | Dan Lips

Congressional leaders remain focused on passing the $1 trillion infrastructure package and answering the Senate’s $3.5 trillion budget resolution. But a bipartisan effort is also underway that has the potential to save hundreds of billions of dollars over time by curbing waste, fraud, and abuse across government agencies. In July, the House of Representatives passed

September 14, 2021 | Dan Lips

Over the past year, Russia and the People’s Republic of China conducted successful cyber espionage campaigns against federal agencies, compromising some of the United States’ most sensitive information. The American public may wonder why federal networks remain vulnerable to serious data breaches despite the government spending billions on cybersecurity programs. But new reports from key