Falun Gong, Steve Bannon And The Trump-Era Battle Over Internet Freedom https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/986982387/falun-gong-steve-bannon-and-the-trump-era-battle-over-internet-freedom
The SMMRY: https://smmry.com/https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/986982387/falun-gong-steve-bannon-and-the-trump-era-battle-over-internet-freedom#&SM_LENGTH=7 > Falun Gong, Steve Bannon And The Battle Over Internet Freedom Under Trump The > Trump administration and a liberal activist fought to win millions in federal > funds for anti-censorship software tied to the Falun Gong. > > Of all the disruptions unleashed by the Trump White House on how the federal > government typically works, the saga of one small project, called the Open > Technology Fund, stands out. > > "Any time a journalist or human rights defender - whether they're in China or > Iran or Russia - picks up one of our technologies, we know and they know that > they are being protected as best as they possibly can," says Laura > Cunningham, who was fired as president of the Open Technology Fund under > Trump and then restored to her position. > > The State Department's inspector general has been investigating a > whistleblower's allegations - first being made public by NPR in this story - > that the concerted effort to divert funds to the Falun Gong software > Ultrasurf was a criminal conspiracy. > > He told the various national security officials present that the State > Department had not continued funding Ultrasurf because it did not want to > offend Chinese officials, given its roots in Falun Gong. > > According to the whistleblower complaint, that USAGM had "Gotten rid of some > people" and that decisions on which Internet freedom initiatives would be > funded would be made "Less ideologically." He made the case that religious > groups needed to play a greater role, according to the whistleblower, clearly > referring to Ultrasurf. > > As of late last year, Pack and other former USAGM officials were facing a > formal criminal inquiry over the whole issue - the Open Technology Fund, > Ultrasurf, the firings, all of it. -- ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
