Main Articles, Volume 14

A Meeting of Minds on Central Bank Digital Currencies for the United States: Commentaries from Participants in the Harvard National Security Journal’s October 14, 2022 Symposium on Digital Currencies and National Security

by Howell Jackson[*], Antionette Schoar[†], and Timothy Massad[‡] [Commentaries in PDF is available at this link] [*] James S. Reid, Jr., Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. [†] Stewart C. Myers-Horn Family Professor of Finance and Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management. Ph.D. in Economics, University of Chicago. [‡] Director of the Digital Assets Policy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School Mossavar Rahmani Center for Business and Government. Former Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.

Main Articles, Volume 14

An Apparent Trilemma for Cross-Border Central Bank Digital Currencies

Giulia Fanti [*] [Full text of this Article in PDF is available at this link] Introduction Today, most central banks worldwide are exploring some form of central-bank digital currency (CBDC), a digital form of central bank money accessible to the public.1 There has been particular interest in cross-border CBDCs (also commonly called multi-CBDCs), which can be used to transfer assets from a CBDC ledger in one jurisdiction (typically one country) to another.2 Important open questions surround how to design multi-CBDCs. For example, how should the system be architected? How should data flow? How should transactions be processed and settled? How should the

Main Articles, Volume 14

Cryptocurrencies and National Security: The Case of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing

Shlomit Wagman [*] [Full text of this Article in PDF is available at this link] Introduction Cryptocurrencies can be a haven for criminals, terrorists, and sanction evaders. The early, romantic ideology underlying blockchain technology envisioned a decentralized currency without geographical boundaries, governmental supervision, central bank control, or any identification required. Cryptocurrency was meant to be a fast, cheap, and reliable way of transferring value among strangers. In 2014, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international organization dedicated to combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism, identified the risks associated with cryptocurrency. By 2018, it developed an overall strategy to manage

Main Articles, Volume 14

Symbiotic Security and Free Speech

Michael J. Glennon [*] [Full text of this Article in PDF is available at this link] Introduction It has long been axiomatic that the Constitution limits only action by the state. Private actors cannot abridge freedom of speech; only the government can be charged with that. It has more recently become accepted that the government’s own speech is insulated from constitutional constraints; government could hardly promote its policies if it were limited, say, by First Amendment viewpoint neutrality requirements. The “state action doctrine” and the “government speech doctrine,” so-called, are now settled principles of American constitutionalism. Whether the speaker is

Main Articles, Volume 13

The Lexicon of Terror: Crystallization of the Definition of “Terrorism” Through the Lens of Terrorist Financing & The Financial Action Task Force

Juan Zarate and Sarah Watson [*] [Full text of this Article in PDF is available at this link] Introduction It is widely assumed that there is no accepted international definition of terrorism, in part because global views on what constitutes terrorism are so politically polarized as to prevent arriving at any meaningful common ground. This view is widespread both in popular culture and the academic community despite the decades of work on this issue at the United Nations (UN), the existence of several UN conventions addressing terrorism, and the increasing convergence of domestic laws on terrorism. In common discourse, any

Main Articles, Volume 13

Dueling over Dual_EC_DRGB: The Consequences of Corrupting a Cryptographic Standardization Process

Nadiya Kostyuk and Susan Landau [*] [Full text of this Article in PDF is available at this link] Introduction The Internet presents a serious conundrum. Though well known to have security problems, the network is globally relied upon for commerce and used to control many critical systems and infrastructure. This inconsistency is partially explained by the fact that when someone says, “The Internet is insecure,” they are often not referring to the communications network, but rather the applications that run on it. But it is also true that a network itself can be insecure and nonetheless be widely used—because the

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