The White House’s outgoing cyber czar, Harry Coker, called for three key things to meet the growing threat of digital attacks: more funding, deregulation and opening up cyber jobs to those without college degrees.

As adversaries like Iran, China and Russia lob near-constant attacks on the U.S. digital infrastructure, “we have to prioritize cybersecurity within federal budgets” President Joe Biden’s national cyber director said at an event with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.

“I would love for the incoming administration, or any administration, to recognize the priority of cybersecurity,” Coker said. 

He added that he understands the U.S. is in a “tough budget situation.”

“I get that, and I support making progress towards reducing the deficit, but we have to prioritize cybersecurity within our current budgets,” he said.

At the same time, the Biden appointee railed against “duplicative federal regulation” and said he’d heard from those working to protect the nation’s online infrastructure that they spend “a staggering 30 to 50%” of their time working to comply with regulation, rather than ensuring protection from hacks.

“Armed with the industry’s call to streamline, we worked with Congress to write bipartisan legislation that would bring all stakeholders, including independent regulators, to the table to advance the regulatory harmonization,” he went on.

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“Many of us were disappointed that this has not become law yet, but we have laid the groundwork for the next administration in Congress to do the right thing for our partners in the private sector.”

His urging comes as the U.S. is grappling with the fallout of one of China’s biggest attacks on American infrastructure in history, dubbed Salt Typhoon. 

A Chinese intelligence group infiltrated nine U.S. telecommunications giants and gained access to the private text messages and phone calls of Americans, including senior government officials and prominent political figures. 

China was behind a slew of major cyberattacks on the U.S. this year. (PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP via Getty Images)

A Chinese intelligence group infiltrated nine U.S. telecommunications giants recently. (REUTERS/Adriano Machado)

The Salt Typhoon hackers also gained access to an exhaustive list of phone numbers the Justice Department had wiretapped to monitor people suspected of espionage, granting them insight into which Chinese spies the U.S. had caught onto and which they had missed.

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China was also behind a “major” hack of the Treasury Department in December, gaining access to unclassified documents and the workstations of government employees. 

And earlier this year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s communications were intercepted by Chinese intelligence, just as she was making determinations about new export controls on semiconductors and other key technologies. The same hacking group also targeted officials at the State Department and members of Congress.

Amid this onslaught of attacks, Coker said the cyber industry is suffering a recruitment issue. 

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“Today there are nearly 500,000 open cyber jobs in this great nation,” he said. 

“The federal government is leading by example… removing federal employee and contractor hiring from a focus on college degrees to a focus on what we’re really after: skills.

“When we do away with the four-year college degree requirement, we expand our talent pool,” Coker went on. “Many Americans don’t have the time or the means to go to college for four years, but they can do it for two years or less.”

The state of Texas filed a major lawsuit on Dec. 12 against a New York doctor who mailed abortion pills to a Collin County, Texas, woman, arguing that the doctor was practicing medicine without a Texas license and violating the state’s abortion ban. The suit raises messy legal questions about whether one state can haul a doctor abiding by the law in another state into its courts, or enforce a judgment if it wins. More than that, however, the suit is a window into the next battlefield over abortion rights — and how abortion pills and telemedicine are reshaping the politics of abortion in America.

The antiabortion movement’s endgame is establishing fetal personhood — the idea that life and constitutional rights begin at the moment sperm fertilizes an egg. Fetal personhood was referenced in the 2024 GOP platform and embraced in a strategy endorsed by most leading antiabortion groups. It has been a focal point of the movement’s efforts for 50 years.

But with blue states and many red states reaffirming a right to abortion, fetal personhood doesn’t seem like it’s going to come to pass anytime soon. In the meantime, abortion opponents have set their sights on shutting down access to abortion pills — mifepristone and misoprostol. The Supreme Court rebuffed one Texas lawsuit targeting mifepristone in June (on the basis of standing), but as the new case indicates, that hasn’t discouraged the antiabortion movement.

Here’s why: Medication abortion, also called chemical abortion, has made it difficult to enforce abortion bans in the states where they exist — indeed, even with Roe vs. Wade reversed, studies show an increase in the number of abortions performed annually in the U.S. Abortion pills also make it harder to frighten doctors and harder to stigmatize the termination of pregnancy.

When all abortions were surgical, the procedure had to take place in bricks-and-mortar facilities. The clinics became targets for protest and sometimes violence and vandalism. Abortion pills, however, can be prescribed remotely, through a telehealth consultation, and they are taken at home very early in a pregnancy. Pills make abortion more private, distancing patients from clinic protests, and their effects may resemble miscarriage, which already occurs in up to 20% of known pregnancies — so much so that physicians have no reliable way of telling the symptoms apart. Along with backlash against the reversal of Roe, the nature of medication abortion seems to be reshaping how Americans think about terminating a pregnancy: The number of those who see abortion as a moral decision has increased in recent years.

The Texas lawsuit is part of a much broader antiabortion strategy that will unfold in the new year. Besides targeting telemedicine and pills, antiabortion groups plan to pursue anyone who aids or abets abortion — for example, internet service providers that allow websites to provide information about abortion pills and where to get them. Other proposals copy a Louisiana law that designates safe and effective drugs used in abortion as “controlled substances.”

In addition to these maneuvers, look for abortion opponents to lobby the Trump administration to reinterpret the Comstock Act, a 19th century obscenity law, to make it illegal to send anything used in abortions by mail. That could create the equivalent of a nationwide ban, which Congress so far won’t legislate and voters don’t want.

And there are other steps the Trump administration could take that would dramatically change abortion access. In 2023, the Food and Drug Administration made changes to the restrictions governing mifepristone and telemedicine abortion appointments. Ever since, antiabortion groups have developed a grab-bag of arguments against the FDA’s rules. They argue that the consensus of peer-reviewed studies is wrong and that mifepristone is extremely dangerous. They also have argued that mifepristone and fetal “remains” are an environmental hazard polluting groundwater.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who would have oversight of the FDA if he is confirmed as Trump’s pick to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said he was pro-choice on the campaign trail, but he also has signaled openness to the antiabortion movement. Claims about drug safety and environmental hazards might resonate with Kennedy, who is an opponent of Big Pharma and once worked in environmental law.

The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe has done nothing to end abortion battles; instead, it has given them new life. Fights over telemedicine consultations, mail-order access to abortion pills and FDA safety rules could make abortion bans far more effective, reshape the procedure in states that protect abortion rights and expand the power of one state to dictate policy in another.

Most important: If abortion opponents succeed in making abortion pills inaccessible, the stigma surrounding abortion may well increase, and access to the procedure decrease. That’s why antiabortion groups have been relentless in their pursuit of pills. Nothing less than Americans’ view of abortion itself is on the line.

Mary Ziegler is a law professor at UC Davis. Her latest book, “Personhood: The New Civil War over Reproduction,” is scheduled for publication in April.