US Used Bogus HIV 'Education' Campaign As A Way To Recruit Anti-Government Activists In Cuba

from the another-bad-idea dept

Following the revelation that USAID built a special "Twitter for Cuba" in an effort to foment dissent in that country, it's now come out, via some AP reporting, that USAID also sent a bunch of Latin American youths from other countries to Cuba on a bogus "HIV prevention" campaign, which was really a cover for recruiting young Cubans to be anti-government activists.

Of course, remember that a bogus Polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan has resulted in people there no longer trusting such vaccinations and a rapid return of polio. While it's not likely that this campaign will directly lead to people totally ignoring HIV prevention advice, just the fact that the US government seems to be trying to make use of important health campaigns as part of a strategy to undermine others will have significant consequences, making people who need such information a lot less willing to actually pay attention to it. This doesn't seem like a good thing.

Filed Under: activists, cuba, hiv education, usaid
Companies: zunzuneo

US Admits It Secretly Built Similar Twitter-Like Services For Lots Of Countries

from the because-usaid dept

Following the revelations that the US had secretly attempted to build a Twitter-like service in Cuba, the US government has now admitted that it has tried to do the same thing in a bunch of different countries, some with more success than others. According to the NY Times:

The United States built Twitter-like social media programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, like one in Cuba, that were aimed at encouraging open political discussion, Obama administration officials said Friday. But like the program in Cuba, which was widely ridiculed when it became public this month, the services in Pakistan and Afghanistan shut down after they ran out of money because the administration could not make them self-sustaining.

In all three cases, American officials appeared to lack a long-term strategy for the programs beyond providing money to start them.

Administration officials also said Friday that there had been similar programs in dozens of other countries, including a Yes Youth Can project in Kenya that was still active.

While you can see the appeal of better helping citizens in these countries communicate with each other, the secrecy concerning who is behind them is where it gets troubling. As the case in Cuba with ZunZuneo, we noted that this helps legitimize every crackpot theory about how various programs are really US government fronts.

In fact, as you read the details of these programs, many of them do appear to have been set up with perfectly noble intentions, to help people better communicate and share ideas. But having the US government behind them -- especially given all of the recent revelations about US surveillance -- completely undermines that intent. Furthermore, it really doesn't seem like any of these services have had much of an impact at all. Instead, in all of the cases where we've heard of social networking services having any impact, they're when citizens of a country adopt existing services, like Twitter and Facebook, rather than these specialized "local" services.

Filed Under: afghanistan, communications, cuba, kenya, pakistan, social media, state department, surveillance, usaid
Companies: yes youth can, zunzuneo

USAID Wants To Correct The Facts On Cuban Twitter: For Example, It Actually Had More Users!

from the not-very-convincing dept

It took a while, but the folks at USAID have finally responded to last week's AP story about how it created a Cuban version of Twitter, thus confirming every crackpot theory out there about how USAID is actually a wing of the CIA. In response, USAID claims that the report had a number of factual errors and it would like to set the record straight. Of course, none of the "facts" it adds seems to change the underlying story. It insists that the program was legal and not "covert" even if no one knew about it:

USAID works in places where we are not always welcome. To minimize the risk to our staff and partners and ensure our work can proceed safely, we must take certain precautions and maintain a discreet profile. But discreet does not equal covert.

The programs have long been the subject of Congressional notifications, unclassified briefings, public budget requests, and public hearings. All of the Congressional Budget Justifications published from 2008 through 2013, which are public and online, explicitly state that a key goal of USAID’s Cuba program is to break the “information blockade” or promote “information sharing” amongst Cubans and that assistance will include the use or promotion of new “technologies” and/or “new media” to achieve its goals.

In 2012, the Government Accountability Office—the U.S. government’s investigative arm—spent months looking at every aspect of USAID’s Cuba programs. GAO’s team of analysts had unrestricted access to project documents, extended telephone conversations with Mobile Accord (ZunZuneo) and even traveled to Cuba. The GAO identified no concerns in the report about the legality of USAID’s programs, including ZunZuneo, and offered USAID zero recommendations for improvements.

That may be true, but doesn't really answer the major questions about the program, and whether or not it was appropriate, or how it would appear when -- inevitably -- it was revealed as a US front. USAID also admits that it sought to create a shell company to run the program after it became successful, but says that they were unable to do so after they couldn't attract private funds. There's also clearly a bit of hurt pride, in that USAID points out that the reporters claimed 40,000 Cubans used the system when the reality was it peaked at 68,000.

There are two areas where the USAID's "facts" are a bit more on point in responding to the claims that the execs recruited to run ZunZuneo were supposed to be kept in the dark about the company's origins. USAID insists that was not the case:

A USAID staff member was present during several of the interviews for candidates to lead ZunZuneo. The staff member's affiliation with USAID was disclosed and it was conveyed that the funding for the program was from the U.S. Government.

Of course, that's worded in a way with plausible deniability. It's unclear how clear it was that the entire project was basically created by USAID, or if it was just a suggestion that USAID had provided some funds for a program that others had created. Also, having a USAID staff member "present" is different than having a USAID person note that USAID was in charge of the whole thing.

The other issue concerns the collection of private data and the use of ZunZuneo to foment anger towards the Cuban government. USAID notes that on social media, lots of people share information, but very few actually did so with ZunZuneo, and no information that was submitted was used. That narrowly avoids the question of whether the plan was to be able to make use of that data in the future, of course. Separately, USAID notes that while it did initially push some information to ZunZuneo users, that was more to get it started, and it soon stopped. Related to that, the claim that USAID hoped to use it to create Smart Mobs was a misreading of some brainstorming on a totally different project:

The “USAID documents” cited in the article appear to be case study research and brainstorming notes between the grantee and the contractor. The specific reference to “Smart Mobs” had nothing to do with Cuba nor ZunZuneo. The documents do not represent the U.S. government’s position or reflect the spirit or actions taken as part of the program in Cuba. The project initially sent news, sports scores, weather, and trivia. After which, the grantee did not direct content because users were generating it on their own.

Again, while useful clarifications, it does suggest the kinds of things that the folks behind the program, knowing full way they were funded by USAID, were thinking of doing. While it's good to see these additional details, it will do little to quell the concerns that USAID seems to be involved in programs well beyond what many people assume is reasonable. I could see the organization helping to fund a project started outside of USAID -- but being so intimately involved in the creation and management still seems quite dangerous.

Filed Under: cuba, usaid
Companies: zunzuneo

Bay Of Tweets: How US Gov't Secretly Built A Twitter For Cuba, Then Freaked Out When It Became Too Successful

from the @fidelcastro dept

The Associated Press has quite an astounding story this morning that reads like a Hollywood script (in fact, I'll be amazed if it hasn't been optioned by a movie studio within days) concerning how the US government's humanitarian organization, USAID, secretly built a "Cuban Twitter" called ZunZuneo, via a secret budget that was earmarked for work in Pakistan, and how this effort sought to effectively undermine the Cuban government. This is the kind of thing you'd expect the CIA to work on, not USAID, which has a different reputation. In fact, now that this story is out, it seems likely to undermine USAID actions around the globe, as governments will insist (accurately) that it's difficult to distinguish if its mission is truly humanitarian... or more aligned with intelligence operations.

The story laid out by the Associated Press is long and complicated, full of bumbling moves by various US government officials, who appeared to accidentally build a super-successful social media project in Cuba in near total secrecy... and then freak out about what they were going to do about it. The crazier parts involve how those involved basically sought to set up a shell corporation to run the thing, after it was already built, while also raising money (and making revenue) to separate it from US government funds... all without letting the new management of this shell company know about the origins of the service. As you might imagine, that was a rather delicate operation. How do you have the US government build a successful social network in secret, and then extricate itself without the new management knowing what's going on.

"The ZZ management team will have no knowledge of the true origin of the operation; as far as they know, the platform was established by Mobile Accord," the memo said. "There should be zero doubt in management's mind and no insecurities or concerns about United States Government involvement."

The memo went on to say that the CEO's clean conscience would be "particularly critical when dealing with Cubacel." Sensitive to the high cost of text messages for average Cubans, ZunZuneo negotiated a bulk rate for texts at 4 cents a pop through a Spanish intermediary. Documents show there was hope that an earnest, clueless CEO might be able to persuade Cubacel to back the project.

Mobile Accord considered a dozen candidates from five countries to head the Spanish front company. One of them was Francoise de Valera, a CEO who was vacationing in Dubai when she was approached for an interview. She flew to Barcelona. At the luxury Mandarin Oriental Hotel, she met with Nim Patel, who at the time was Mobile Accord's president. Eberhard had also flown in for the interviews. But she said she couldn't get a straight answer about what they were looking for.

"They talked to me about instant messaging but nothing about Cuba, or the United States," she told the AP in an interview from London.

The story is full of somewhat astounding twists, turns and subplots (seriously, go read the whole thing). Eventually, it appears that once people realized there was no way to separate out the US government, the service just sort of suddenly disappeared, though it was made to look like Cuba was blocking it (the story is a bit unclear if Cuba actually blocked it, but it's clear that the US more or less just decided to walk away and drop the project).

Either way, it's unlikely this story is over. Beyond the implications for USAID workers around the globe right now, officials in the US government are concerned about why USAID appeared to be involved in what looks a lot more like an intelligence operation (the program didn't just let Cubans talk to each other, but also sent them various questions that touched on their views on democracy and the government, and then collected the various answers).

"On the face of it there are several aspects about this that are troubling," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. and chairman of the Appropriations Committee's State Department and foreign operations subcommittee.

"There is the risk to young, unsuspecting Cuban cellphone users who had no idea this was a U.S. government-funded activity. There is the clandestine nature of the program that was not disclosed to the appropriations subcommittee with oversight responsibility. And there is the disturbing fact that it apparently activated shortly after Alan Gross, a USAID subcontractor who was sent to Cuba to help provide citizens access to the Internet, was arrested."

Similarly, the report details how someone on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was completely kept in the dark about this, and confronted USAID, who "refused to provide operational details." The report also notes concerns that this effort violated the US-European data protection agreement (though, to be fair, EU countries have been insisting that this is violated regularly, in part because it is).

Either way, this is quite a story that's well worth finding some time to read. It would be an entertaining story were it fiction. As a real story, however, it seems like yet another story where US meddling in foreign countries eventually leads to a lot more problems than benefits. Helping to spur greater communication and information sharing among the public is a good thing -- the US State Department has worked on a number of projects to enable more widespread internet access among citizens in various authoritarian countries -- but going so far as to build a service in secret, which is also then used to spy on the individuals in that country, seems to only create additional headaches.

Filed Under: cuba, intelligence community, social media, undermining governments, usaid
Companies: zunzuneo