In Radio Free Asia’s case, that money was supposed to go to the Open Technology Fund, a digital rights non-profit financed by taxpayers.It’s the latest example of how the Trump administration is trying to revamp the agency, which oversees taxpayer-funded media properties, and which the administration says has strayed too far from its mission of representing the U.S. abroad.
USAGM officials have been in touch in recent months with the maker of Ultrasurf, software that provides internet firewall circumvention code and which was developed by a member of the Falun Gong, a persecuted Chinese religious minority. For the last several years, USAGM had refused to provide money for Ultrasurf because they haven’t allowed their software to be subjected to a thorough audit of the code, and USAGM and OTF prefer to fund open source technologies, in part to prevent the insertion of back doors into the code.
USAGM said in a statement that its Office of Internet Freedom, which has existed longer than OTF, is capable of providing the same type of funding and that it works more efficiently. “OIF and USAGM intend to continue the work of advancing human rights and freedom of expression for those living in closed regimes, and that is despite OTF leadership’s attempts to line its own pockets with U.S. taxpayer dollars while insisting upon no oversight,” USAGM said.it had been forced to issue “stop-work orders” to more than 80 percent of its active internet freedom projects because it’s being starved of cash by the U.S. government.
Trump puts another nail in the coffin of what used to be our admirable global reputation