Defending Digital Democracy

It can be tough to craft regulations and national security policies for data and technology that do not fall afoul of democratic and capitalist values. A national information strategy can sound, or indeed become, Orwellian without the right political leadership. But to thrive in the twenty-first century, democracies must now put information at the center of domestic, security, and foreign policy.

Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center has named Maria Barsallo Lynch Executive Director of the Center’s Defending Digital Democracy Project (D3P). Barsallo Lynch brings to D3P a background in the cross-section of politics, cybersecurity, and technology that will help grow the project’s work and impact in providing solutions and tools to keep democratic processes safe.  

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School has named Lauren Zabierek, Maria Barsallo Lynch, and Julia Voo to head three of the Center’s growing cyber-related projects. They will run the Center’s Cyber Project, Defending Digital Democracy Project, and China Cyber Policy Initiative, respectively.

As threats to U.S. elections multiply, the Belfer Center’s Defending Digital Democracy Project (D3P) continues to help election officials fight back. Coordinated by D3P’s Mari Dugas, the Defending Digital Democracy team of staff and students has worked during the year with state and local election officials in their own states across the country to conduct election security tabletop exercises and has also expanded engagement with cybersecurity professionals.

To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.

In an interview with Tom Costello on NBC's Today Show, Eric Rosenbach says the United States is not ready for a major cyber attack despite evidence of serious risks to the power grid and other American systems. Officials say much of the power grid has already been penetrated by Russian intelligence.