Vice President Kamala HarrisEx-President Donald Trump
The United States of America (USA) government has confirmed knowledge of cyber related attempts by foreign governments to interfere with the Tuesday, November 5, 2024 Presidential election that has former President Donald Trump pitched against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Ambassador-at-Large, Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, U.S. Department of State, Nathaniel C. Fick, who said this during a Media Briefing at the New York Foreign Press Center, yesterday, Wednesday, September 25, 2024, added that the U.S government will not tolerate such interference and would do everything to protect America’s domestic democratic process.
Giving a “Foreign Policy Update on U.S Cyberspace and Digital Policy Priorities,” to the Media, Fick stressed that the attempts at interference were being orchestrated by the different foreign governments in support of the two major parties and their candidates. Trump is the Republican Party candidate while Harris is the Democratic Party flag bearer.
Fick also gave insights into what his office has been doing to advance cyber security globally, guard against the misuse of commercial Spyware and evolve an acceptable governance structure for the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
He noted, for one, that technology has become central to every area of life “from climate change to human rights to scientific research,” and to every aspect of foreign policy, hence the need for “a more collective, more unified, more cooperative approach that we are calling digital solidarity.”
He also spoke of the need for a multistakeholder approach to tech issues. “So the United States remains fundamentally committed to multistakeholderism. …. Multistakeholderism means that it can’t just be governments talking to governments. The bulk of the innovation, the bulk of the talent in the technology space sits in the private sector, and so everything we need – everything we do needs to include the companies, the innovators, the investment capital that is driving this 21st century economy.”It also has to include civil society organizations of all kinds, particularly in the context of more authoritarian regimes trying to exert their influence in these technology areas in ways that are fundamentally not respectful of basic human rights. And civil society organizations are the watchdogs in the world that help ensure that the governments and the companies are developing, deploying, and using technology in ways that put people first.”
The Ambassador-at-Large equally spoke of the growing coalition around the prohibition of the misuse of commercial spyware, noting that several nations have now signed the joint statement aimed at ensuring that digital technologies are used in a responsible and rights respecting manner, stressing that “the State Department is taking steps to impose new visa restrictions on multiple individuals that have facilitated and derived financial benefit from the misuse of commercial spyware.”
On AI, he recalled the rhetorical questions asked by President Joe Biden in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday, September 24, 2024 concerning the use of AI for wholesome purposes, and insisted that AI should be channeled towards uses that support sustainable development, and should be accessible to all parts of the world.
He pointed out that Secretary of State, Antony Blinken and the State Department “hosted an event on Monday on advancing sustainable development through safe, secure, and trustworthy AI. And at that gathering, we had representatives from the majority of the leading businesses globally developing frontier AI systems. The Secretary announced the signing of the Partnership for Global Inclusivity on AI, which is a public-private partnership between the State Department and the leading U.S. AI companies that committed more than $100 million of actual concrete, tangible commitments in order to make advanced AI systems accessible to the majority of the world, particularly to countries that may not have the resources on their own to fully unlock AI’s potential.”
He also noted the critical place of undersea cable connectivity in tech diplomacy. According to him, “more than 95 percent of the world’s internet traffic travels via these undersea cables. And I think it’s accurate and fair to think of them as the foundation of the global architecture undergirding the internet in the 21st century economy.”
In appreciation of the centrality of undersea cable connectivity, he announced that he was going to host, yesterday, a side event “where among other things we will announce a joint statement, the New York Principles on Undersea Cable Connectivity,” celebrate the success of an ongoing initiative in the Pacific Island countries, codify the principles, and “begin to think together about where we can now do more work together on this important piece of the global information architecture.”
The Digital Diplomat also stated that his office, though a novelty, was on course in terms of the fulfillment of its mandate and the goals he set for himself on assumption of office. “I set an objective quickly after taking the job, of trying to make sure that the United States had a trained cyber and digital diplomat in every one of our embassies around the world. Two years in, I’m proud to say that we’ve trained more than 200 of them, and we are on track – by the end of this year, we will in fact have a basically trained cyber and tech diplomat in nearly all of our missions around the world.”
