Paper argues cybersecurity is being overused to frame unrelated policy issues

A new paper titled 'Cybersecurity Mission Creep' argues that policymakers are increasingly reframing a wide range of unrelated policy issues as cybersecurity threats, a phenomenon the author terms 'cybersecuritization.' The paper, published on SSRN, examines how issues such as misinformation, child social media safety laws, antitrust regulations, alleged journalist misconduct, and anti-sex trafficking statutes are being positioned as cybersecurity problems.

According to the author, this reframing transforms issues that were previously viewed as important but not existential into urgent, technologically amplified threats. This shift grants them access to the politics and legal frameworks of urgency and exceptionalism, which can override countervailing considerations and oversimplify complex policy debates.

The paper warns that cybersecuritization risks unidimensional solutions and the use of argumentative 'trump cards,' such as First Amendment challenges, to shut down broader discussion. It also argues that the phenomenon invites deference to purported specialists, making governance choices more opaque and eroding public trust and political legitimacy.

To address these risks, the author proposes a novel framework for analyzing and critiquing cybersecuritization. The paper supports its argument with cases drawn from both criminal and civil domains, demonstrating what it describes as the insidious expansion of cybersecuritization and its likely continued growth.

The author contends that confronting cybersecuritization is essential to reclaim governance from the reductive tendencies of security framing, which can abdicate responsibility for difficult policy choices to the perceived urgency of cybersecurity.