How the Tech Landscape Could Change Post-Election

With election season in full swing, we thought it might be fun to ask ourselves a hypothetical question: How might the technology landscape as we know it change if the current administration were to lose the 2020 presidential election? What are some of the key policies we could expect to see evolve under a Biden/Harris administration? Here are some of our best guesses on how the U.S. approach to technology—and especially cybersecurity—might diverge from its current path under a new administration.

NOTE: The following scenarios are fictional and do not reflect current events. They are for entertainment purposes only.

After the Election: Change Happens

Jan. 20, 2021: After a period of unprecedented instability during a presidential transition, Joe Biden officially assumes office. None of the previous cabinet secretaries from the Trump administration have been retained, and President Biden has also replaced outgoing FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Let’s examine some of the ways that U.S. cybersecurity policy established under Trump would likely change.

The Return of the Cybersecurity Czar

Throughout his administration, Trump dismissed allegations from the U.S. intelligence community that foreign actors were targeting the U.S. electoral system. In 2018, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson famously eliminated the position of National Cybersecurity Coordinator from the Department of State. Now, the czar is back.

With the recent regime changeover, a key initiative of the new administration appears to be the bolstering of our cybersecurity defenses, which they hope will prevent future interference in U.S. elections or troubling incidents such as the infamous 2020 Twitter account takeover of Presidents Obama and Biden. Most recently, Biden appointed the first female cybersecurity czar, and upcoming legislation in Congress will likely establish cybersecurity coordinators in every state.

The JEDI Contract

The JEDI Contract, or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, is a $10 billion contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide cloud computing services. Originally awarded to Amazon and contested by Oracle, President Trump ordered the contract to be investigated for favoritism, and it was later awarded to Microsoft. Although federal courts affirmed Microsoft’s award in September 2020, it appears that the entire JEDI contract vehicle will be scrapped in favor of smaller contracts awarded to solutions-oriented, best-in-class American tech companies.

The National Policy for 5G

The National policy for 5G, authored by the Executive Branch, outlined a plan to facilitate a domestic rollout of 5G services but was largely focused on identifying risks, notably in the global rollout of 5G infrastructure. It appears that the U.S. campaign to pressure allies to forgo the use of “untrusted supply chain” equipment such as that from Huawei from their networks has softened. Likewise, recent 2020 initiatives from the State Department focusing on propping up worldwide “clean carriers”—those telcos without Huawei or ZTE core infrastructure—are being rolled back. Recently it was announced that the Entity list (essentially a blacklist of companies)  maintained by the Department of Commerce will be re-examined as the U.S. reassess global priorities. Similarly, the Dept. of Justice (DoJ) has abandoned its attempts to extradite and prosecute the CFO of Huawei from Canada for sanctions violations. Although economic tensions between China and the U.S. seem to have calmed considerably, the conversation in many ways has shifted focus to human rights violations.

National Contact Tracing

While some individual states have begun rolling out contract tracing applications with limited success, we’re now seeing a seismic shift of the burden to enforce COVID-19 protections away from state governments. Along with the National Mask Mandate executive order that went into effect immediately following the inauguration, Biden has already pledged to swiftly roll out a national contact tracing application. Although many security and privacy concerns will persist, most agree that a single app for national contact tracing will reduce confusion and provide more accurate results.

Huawei, Tencent and Bytedance

From early on in the Trump administration, key adviser Steven Bannon championed a trade war with China. In the latter half of 2020, we saw an escalation of these activities, with notable executive orders (now rescinded) aimed at Bytedance (the developers of TikTok) and Tencent’s WeChat app, as well as a highly publicized battle with 5G equipment manufacturer and phone maker Huawei. Biden’s new attorney general, Elizabeth Warren, had already announced that the DoJ will place all litigation against the three companies on hold as the U.S. re-evaluates ongoing litigation.

New Legislation on Foreign Interference in the U.S. Election Cycle

Finally, the new administration is getting tougher on foreign interference in our electoral cycle. Although a tougher provision was stripped from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2020, new, tougher legislation was recently reintroduced by the House and is expected to pass quickly. The bill faces a tough road ahead with the Senate. The Republicans lost three Senate seats in the November elections but still retain a slight majority with 50 seats, while the Democrats hold 48 with two remaining independents. However, it appears the current administration is going to take a very active stance against cyber intrusions aimed at influencing election outcomes, even if new legislation fails to pass. The executive order, a powerful tool for Trump, has become an important weapon for cyberdefense.

What Are Your Post-Election Predictions?

These are some of the shifts that could happen in 2021 if the Democrats were to secure a victory in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. This article isn’t intended to be partisan; we are simply analyzing the current cybersecurity and technology landscape in the U.S. and theorizing what could be. Of course, none of this may come to pass—and almost certainly some of it won’t.

What do you think will happen in 2021? Feel free to add your predictions to the comment section below!

Disclaimer: All opinions in this article are solely the author’s and not the views of his employer.