The U. S. government recently joined foreign nations Australia, Denmark and Norway in moving to slow the spread of technology known to be used by governments for the purposes of repression.
At the recent Summit for Democracy, Biden administration officials announced the Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative to “help stem the tide of authoritarian government misuse of technology.”
In a White House press release, U.S. government officials added “too often cyber intrusion, surveillance and other dual-use-technologies are misused to stifle dissent, harass human rights defenders, intimidate minority communities, discourage whistleblowers, chill free expression, target political opponents, journalists and lawyers or interfere arbitrarily or unlawfully with privacy.”
In addition, the Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative will work to address all forthcoming challenges by “working to develop a voluntary written code of conduct intended to guide the application of human rights criteria to export licensing policy and practice” and “bringing together policy makers, technical experts and export control and human rights practitioners to ensure critical and emerging technologies work for and not against democratic societies.”
Early last summer, U.S. government officials added to the Commerce Department’s Entity List entities located in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that have been enabling human rights abuses against Uyghurs, Kazakha and other members of Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang. With the PRC believed to still be committing genocide, the action prevents authorities there from having access to U.S. technology.
