Governance

26 Items

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Report

Digital Crime Scenes: The Role of Digital Evidence in the Persecution of LGBTQ People in Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia

    Author:
  • Afsaneh Rigot
| Mar. 07, 2022

Digital evidence–primarily from device searches–has made it easier for law enforcement to identify, harass, and prosecute LGBTQ people on the basis of their identity. This new report by Technology and Public Purpose fellow and Berkman Klein Center affiliate Afsaneh Rigot draws on years of in-depth research, including reviews of individual court case files and interviews with defense attorneys in Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, to demonstrate the painful and unjust impacts of these developments, as well as the communities’ resilience. 

Afsaneh Rigot has deep experience with both the needs and views of queer people in MENA as well as engaging tech companies to make meaningful change. She advocates for a methodology she terms Design from the Margins. Rigot calls on companies to use the findings of this report to build from the essential needs of those most impacted by their tools, creating better tech for all users in the process.

Report - Technology and Public Purpose

Building a 21st Century Congress: A Playbook for Modern Technology Assessment

| June 2021

How can United States policymakers better understand the next generation of emerging technologies and their societal implications? How can we make more educated decisions on the basic and applied research needed to solve the next generation of emerging threats? 

The 117th Congress and the Biden Administration must urgently address these questions to protect the lives and livelihoods of those living in the United States.
 

Paper

The Congressional Futures Office

    Authors:
  • Justin Warner
  • Grant Tudor
| May 2019

This report interrogates the widening gap between responsive lawmaking in Congress and the deepening complexity of advancements in science and technology. It finds that certain weakened capabilities have atrophied the organization’s absorptive capacity, or the ways by which it recognizes the value of, assimilates, and makes use of knowledge outside of itself. We propose the design of a new internal body—the Congressional Futures Office—as an optimal response among a set of considered options. 

An armored vehicle goes patrolling for mines with a U.S. military convoy in Northern Syria, March 31, 2018.

Hussein Malla (AP)

Analysis & Opinions - Proceedings - U.S. Naval Institute

The Other Mine Warfare

| July 01, 2018

Ask almost any U.S. Navy officer about mine warfare and the reply most likely will center on efforts to recapitalize the service’s surface and airborne mine countermeasures capabilities. It would be unusual to receive a response that has anything to do with the actual use of maritime mines by the United States or friendly nations.

The Navy’s response has been to dedicate additional resources and intellectual firepower to countermine warfare in an effort to preserve its freedom of maneuver. However, the service has overlooked the other half of the lesson: mines are a cheap and disruptive weapon in naval warfare.

Sir John Sawers with Sec. Ash Carter and Amb. Nicholas Burns

Benn Craig/ Belfer Center

Analysis & Opinions

Conversations in Diplomacy: Sir John Sawers

| Mar. 01, 2018

In this installment of “Conversations in Diplomacy," the Future of Diplomacy Project's Faculty Director Nicholas Burns is joined by Sir John Sawers, the former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, for a conversation on tackling global security challenges in the digital age and the changing nature of intelligence agencies.

2016 Democratic National Convention

Flickr Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - The Oregonian

Is Russia trying to sway the U.S. election?

| July 31, 2016

As the candidates are solidified by their respective parties, leaked emails call to question the involvement of outside parties in opening access to the public on private correspondence. Senior Fellow for The Future of Diplomacy Project, David Ignatius, digs into the validity of such claims and the breakdown of security.