Government & Communications

Institutions that provide essential services, including education, health care, government functions, and the workforce, have a duty to make their services universally accessible. But because of the persistence of the digital divide, these institutions cannot fully integrate and modernize internet-based technologies into their services; doing so would effectively deny service to people who cannot adequately access the internet. As a result, institutions have been unable to fully leverage the benefits of technology to make their services even more effective, efficient, and innovative.

Elon Musk and SpaceX are launching a military-branded version of Starlink called Starshield. According to its newly launched website, Starshield will be the military and government version of Starlink, a satellite based internet service. It will first focus on three areas: Earth observation, communications, and hosted payloads. So it will be a spy satellite, a communication platform, and will be customizable for the individual customer. The satellite bus is part of its main body and can be outfitted with different sensors depending on the user’s needs.

China’s internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration, instructed tech companies to expand censorship of protests and moved to curb access to virtual private networks, as a government clampdown succeeds in keeping most protesters off the streets after 

The Commerce Department, under Secretary Gina Raimondo’s leadership, is now poised to begin distributing nearly $100 billion — roughly 10 times the department’s annual budget — to build up the U.S. chip industry and expand broadband access throughout the country. How Raimondo handles that task will have big implications for the United States economy going forward.

Federal agencies are on the road to 5G adoption, realizing the benefits and addressing the challenges. 5G networks will enable the connection of billions of new devices, sensors, and systems that will intelligently connect to the network and each other based on their time sensitivity and computational needs. How are federal agencies progressing with 5G adoption?

One year ago, I was standing on the South Lawn of the White House alongside a bipartisan group of lawmakers watching President Biden sign the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), infusing billions of dollars for an unprecedented national broadband deployment effort. We knew at the time it was a historic moment.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein and the Attorneys General of Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Oregon led a bipartisan group of 33 attorneys general calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to consider stronger surveillance and data security protections to prevent misconduct and promote transparency and accountability around online data collection.

This report is a culmination of three years of investigation into domestic terrorism and the federal response. This report focuses on the rise in domestic terrorism, the federal response, the allocation of federal resources to addressing domestic terrorism, and the role of social media companies in the proliferation of extremist content. The expansion of social media has led to increased recruitment, dissemination, and coordination of domestic terrorist and extremist related activities.

In the weeks since Elon Musk took over the platform, his erratic leadership and bewildering choices have alienated many of Twitter’s power users, a core crop of whom are part of the American political establishment. But leaving a communications channel that’s become central to how Washington works won’t be easy. Washington takes Twitter very seriously. Twitter is a place where all the worlds that make up Washington — the politicians, the policy experts, the press, academics, activists, and others — gather.

During a closed-door session with lawmakers, FBI Director Christopher Wray was asked whether the bureau had ever purchased and used Pegasus, the hacking tool that penetrates mobile phones and extracts their contents. Director Wray acknowledged that the FBI had bought a license for Pegasus, but only for research and development.