The Department of Justice announced in a press release on Wednesday that a committee recommended that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deny an application to modify the United States’ undersea cable system with the addition of a segment which would directly connect to the United States through a recently developed station in Cojimar, Cuba.
The recommendation was made by the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector, better known as Team Telecom.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said that “the United States supports an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable internet around the world, including in Cuba. Unfortunately, the Cuban government does not share that view[.] As long as the Government of Cuba poses a counterintelligence threat to the United States, and partners with others who do the same, the risks to our critical infrastructure are simply too great.”
The press release states that this addition to the undersea cable system would raise national security concerns because Cuba’s state-owned telecommunications monopoly would own and control the cable-landing system, thus allowing the government of Cuba to potentially access sensitive American data traversing this new cable.
Team Telecom based their recommendation off the following:
- Cuba has been a significant counterintelligence threat to the United States.
- American cable traffic could be rerouted as it traverses these Cuban networks.
- The Cuban government could share any USA information acquired through this cable with foreign adversaries, such as Russia and China.
The press release concludes that “although the United States supports the Cuban people’s access to an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable internet, the Committee found that this particular license application pertains to a cable landing that presents unacceptable risks to U.S. national security and law enforcement interests that cannot be mitigated.”