Privacy is one of the defining policy issues of our time. In the digital era, privacy concerns are omnipresent.  From advertisers and online platforms seemingly tracking our every move online, to ongoing discussions about law enforcement’s need for access to encrypted communications to protect us against terrorists and other violent criminals, to the geopolitics of countries spying on one another’s citizens, concerns about individual privacy arise constantly in the public and private spheres, both domestically and abroad.

We have a new essay in the Hoover Aegis series called “Strengths Become Vulnerabilities: How a Digital World Disadvantages the United States in its International Relations.”  It seeks to explain why the United States is struggling to deal with the “soft” cyber operations that have been so prevalent in recent years: cyberespionage and cybertheft, often followed by strategic publication; information operations and propaganda; and relatively low-level cyber disruptions such as denial-of-service and ransomware attacks. 

The oft-quoted quip "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail" anticipated the practice of federal agencies expanding their mandate by shoehorning policy initiatives into regulatory regimes for which they were never intended.

In an age of maturing cyberattacks, risking a hack back may not be worth the emotional gratification.