Week Seven

This week things began to calm down as the Kenyan delegation was in Williamsburg, Virginia. Because of this, I was able to work on some really cool projects!

Starting off, I looked into work the organization has done relating to digital evidence for a potential project with the State Department. Since the pandemic, NCSC has produced many resources for courts around the country to help with moving court proceedings to a hybrid or virtual format. Included in this is help with creating, managing, and presenting digital evidence. It was fascinating to read about the logistical challenges courts faced when they were forced to adapt to the new pandemic world. Aside from the pandemic, there were plenty of resources on how courts can manage evidence that was AI-generated. There were reports on how AI-generated evidence could be a positive, as it can recreate crime scenes, analyze evidence, and produce other documents that may help a case. On the flip side, multiple resources warned of the danger of deepfakes, especially when dealing with a high-profile case. Reports cautioned about failing to authenticate evidence properly and outlined important steps all courts should take to ensure the evidence presented is real.

Additionally, I began working on two projects that fit into my national security background and interest, which I was very excited about. The first was helping the Caribbean team wrap up the quarterly report that is due to the State Department in late July. I reviewed and edited the report and began gathering news articles from the past three months to pull data on how financial criminal activity in the region has been. It was interesting to learn more about NCSC's work in the Caribbean, including their consultation on a variety of financial crimes cases. 

I also continued my work on the new Philippines project focused on supporting terrorism courts in the southern region of Mindanao. The Financial Action Task Force recently took the country off of their gray list, a signal to private sector investors that the Philippines has taken substantial steps to curb corruption, money laundering, and terrorism financing. To support the initiative, I wrote up a summary of all actions the Philippines had taken to prevent financial criminal activity.

NCSC also has a project proposal for a State Department initiative that focuses on preventing sanction evasion efforts by China and Russia. I'm so excited to do some sanctions work, so stay tuned next week for an update on how that work goes!