DIGI Welcomes New State Department Bureau on Cyberspace and Digital Policy

The Digital Impact and Governance Initiative (DIGI) welcomes the announcement of the U.S. State Department’s new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP). A key pillar of Secretary Blinken’s modernization agenda outlined in October, the CDP bureau will address “the national security challenges, economic opportunities, and implications for U.S. values associated with cyberspace, digital technologies, and digital policy.” Led by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jennifer Bachus until an Ambassador-at-Large is confirmed, the CDP bureau will be organized around three policy units: International Cyberspace Security, International Information and Communications Policy, and Digital Freedom.

While momentum for this bureau has been building for years, the timing of the launch is significant given the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. The new CDP bureau is a foundational step toward solidifying cybersecurity and digital policy as core priorities of U.S. foreign policy, recognizing their critical role in our rapidly changing political landscape. Ideally, the bureau will bolster the U.S. government’s long-term ability to help shape the international rules, standards, and infrastructure underpinning the digital revolution.

Looking beyond the foreign policy space, this move is part of the larger effort needed to address the link between the future of democratic, open societies, and how the internet evolves. Issues at the intersection of technology and democracy cut across the traditional foreign vs. domestic policy lines – such as freedom of information, privacy, security, transparency, human rights, and mis/disinformation–precisely because our reliance on digital systems has implications for everything we do: from how we work, study, and interact with our communities, to our national security and political and economic stability.

The recent Summit for Democracy called for a positive vision for the future of the internet, both to prove governments can deliver for their citizens and to defend against digital authoritarianism. DIGI is hopeful the new CDP bureau will welcome cross-sector collaboration with civil society organizations and others working at the intersection of tech and democracy to realize this vision. Further, building on this important addition to the State Department, it is critical to continue positioning and equipping our institutional architecture across the U.S. government to unite the international and domestic lines of this effort.