America, Don ’t Be the Anti‐​Network State: Crypto Policy for the Leader of the Free World

Jack SoloweyEntertaining crackdowns on Americans ’ voluntary use of software has been a theme of policy leaders’ response tofraud charges at centralized crypto exchange FTX. Following last week ’s FTX hearing, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH)floated the idea of “maybe banning” crypto. Earlier this month, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Rostin Behnamconsidered how the federal government might help offshore crypto exchanges that block U.S. users “protect those firewalls.”Banning open-source software and barring the doors to the global Internet is no way to lead the free world. It shortsightedly undermines new ways of organizing civil society and commerce by prohibiting a technology that may prove key to developing robust cultural institutions over digital networks. Furthermore, it is inconsistent with American values, rejecting tools used to counter authoritarian overreach the world over. U.S. crypto policy must embrace, not eliminate, Americans ’ freedom to write code, access information, and digitally organize.A state-sanctioned informational firewall is a tool of authoritarian regimes, whereas cryptographically secure software is a tool of democratic civil society. To overcome state censorship and access dissident content,Chinese anti-lockdown protesters had to bypass “China’s Great Firewall” to reach American websites. Blockchain technology, by contrast, allowedprotesters in Hong Kong to preserve the archives of a pr...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs