In October, RDI brought together over 150 dissidents, journalists, policymakers, and thought leaders to address transnational repression and authoritarian influence in open societies at its second annual Frontlines of Freedom Conference in Washington, DC.
RDI’s dissident community detailed their personal experiences with transnational repression and brainstormed ways for us to fight back. Our panels brought together experts from business, academia, and the technology space to cover the pervasive authoritarian influence in American society.
Here are our recommendations for how American businesses, universities, and the US government can best defend themselves from the long arm of authoritarian influence.
Recommendations for American Businesses
Authoritarian governments don’t need to cross oceans to exploit key vulnerabilities in our systems. Dictators can use levers like supply chains, market shares, and economic espionage to fund their regimes, repress dissent, and ultimately threaten American national security.
What can businesses do?
- Increase transparency in supply chains, and safeguard them against authoritarian influence.
- Invest in growth markets outside of authoritarian states to become less reliant on those markets.
- Build corporate accountability frameworks that are aligned with liberal democratic values.
What can the US government do?
- Create incentives for companies to prioritize resilience over profits from authoritarian regimes.
- Reward businesses for divesting from authoritarian regimes and increasing transparency in their supply chains.
- Strengthen and enforce trade laws, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, to hold companies accountable for forced labor in their supply chains.
- Enforce existing sanctions against authoritarian regimes and consider implementing secondary sanctions against nations that help dictators get around these restrictions.
Recommendations for American Universities
There are dozens of well-documented cases of transnational repression on campuses across the country. Students in the US are being surveilled, their freedom of speech is being curbed in the classroom, and their relatives back home are being threatened. Worse, universities not only fail to protect students from authoritarian intimidation—they sometimes show bias in favor of authoritarian governments.
What can universities do?
- Adopt a standard definition of transnational repression on campuses and identify common tactics.
- Incorporate transnational repression into existing student and faculty codes of conduct, making it clear that anyone surveilling, harassing, and threatening university students will face consequences.
- Create mechanisms for reporting incidents.
Recommendations for Technology and AI Governance
Most technology is amoral—a force for good in the hands of a democratic leader could become an instrument of repression in the hands of a dictator.
Authoritarian regimes use technology to suppress dissent beyond their borders by spreading disinformation and propaganda and monitoring people around the world. AI has made these tactics easier and more efficient for perpetrators, and harder for dissidents and their allies to track. Digital transnational repression is carried out via a wide variety of mechanisms, including but not limited to threats and doxing online, biometric surveillance, phishing and cyber attacks, and spyware.
What can the US government do?
- Develop global frameworks to govern AI and digital rights, emphasizing algorithmic transparency.
- Enhance export controls for surveillance technologies linked to human rights abuses.
- Support international collaborations to curb proliferation of commercial spyware.
Recommendations to Protect Dissidents in Exile
America was built by freedom fighters, making our country a beacon of hope—and a home—for those fighting for freedom and combating authoritarians in their own nations. However, living in the United States does not mean you are out of dictators’ reach. Whether on campuses, online, or walking down the street, dictators have means of intimidating, surveilling, and even attempting to assassinate political opponents on American soil.
What can the US government do?
- Codify a clear legal definition of transnational repression.
- Expand training and resources for federal agencies to address transnational repression.
- Ensure that any reformation of the US immigration system ensures fair treatment of dissidents and prevents the abuse of legal mechanisms like INTERPOL red notices.
Open Society Requires Collective Defense
Authoritarian regimes use the full power of their systems to erode the institutions and values that bind together open societies: free expression, free and fair markets, and the open inquiry of ideas.
No individual, organization, university, or government agency can tackle these issues alone. The single most important takeaway from the Frontlines of Freedom Conference was that governments, businesses, universities, and NGOs all have their roles to play working in concert to defend democracy and promote freedom around the world.
Caitlin Forrest is the Frontlines of Freedom program officer at the Renew Democracy Initiative.
Sohan Mewada is an associate editor at the Renew Democracy Initiative.
