[liberationtech] [berkmanfriends] AFP on Senate circumvention funding report to release Tuesday

[Sasha Costanza-Chock]

You know what internet censorship circumvention technology friends in 
Tunis and Egypt were asking me for when the net was taken mostly down? 
Satellite cell phones.

peace
sc


Rebecca MacKinnon wrote:
> http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/02/13/11/us-internet-censorship-fight-falling-short-report
> 
> US Internet censorship fight falling short: report
> 
> Agence France-Presse
> Posted at 02/13/2011 6:37 PM | Updated as of 02/13/2011 6:37 PM
> 
> WASHINGTON, USA - State Department efforts to combat Internet
> censorship in China and other countries have fallen short and funding
> for the drive should be shifted to another US agency, a Senate
> committee report says.
> 
> The Senate Foreign Relations Committee report sharply criticizes the
> State Department for being slow in spending money allocated by
> Congress for Internet Censorship Circumvention Technology (ICCT).
> 
> The report, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, recommends that the
> funding be given instead to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG),
> which oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and other US
> radio and TV networks.
> 
> The report is to be released on Tuesday, the same day Secretary of
> State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to deliver remarks on Internet
> freedom at George Washington University here.
> 
> Clinton also delivered a major Internet freedom speech in January
> 2010, but the Senate committee report said there had been "scant
> follow-up" in the next 12 months.
> 
> Congress has given the State Department $50 million for Internet
> freedom programs since fiscal 2008, the report said, but $30 million
> remains unspent and little has gone to Internet Censorship
> Circumvention Technology.
> 
> "Such technology should be given a much higher priority by the US
> government," it said. "US government support for ICCT development is
> vital, given the weak private sector market interest in funding such
> technologies."
> 
> The report suggested the delays in allocating funding were partly
> because some of the most sophisticated ICCT software -- DIT and
> UltraReach -- was developed by two US companies founded by members of
> the Falungong, which is banned in China, to allow followers to break
> through the "Great Firewall."
> 
> The report said DIT and UltraReach have been used to circumvent
> Internet censorship in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Myanmar and
> Vietnam -- "countries which have looked to China for lessons in
> Internet control or to whom China has directly provided technologies
> to counter such products."
> 
> It said the delays in allocating funding have "strengthened the hands
> of those governments, including China's, who seek to restrict their
> citizens' access to information."
> 
> "The State Department is poorly placed to handle this issue due to its
> reliance on daily bilateral interaction with these very same
> governments, particularly China," the report said.
> 
> It said BBG stations, which also include Radio Marti, which targets
> Cuba, and the Middle East Broadcasting Network "must all work on a
> daily basis to ensure their radio, Internet and television programs
> are being received by audiences in certain countries that try to
> block, jam or outlaw these efforts."
> 
> "As such, the BBG, and not the State Department, would appear to be
> the logical lead agency in the federal government to focus current and
> future ICCT funding," the report said.
> 
> The report also criticized what it called the "inept handling of an
> untested technology" -- ICCT software called Haystack created by the
> San Francisco-based Censorship Research Center to assist Iranian
> democracy activists.
> 
> "The Haystack team had not sufficiently tested its software nor
> allowed it to be submitted for independent cryptological analysis
> before it released a beta version to unsuspecting Iranians," the
> report said.
> 
> "In September 2010, just after the beta version was released, an
> independent team was able to crack the code in six hours and also
> determined that the Iranian government would be able to manipulate the
> software to identify any users," it said. "Once these weaknesses were
> made public, the Haystack project quickly collapsed."
> 
> The report, which also called for the US government to increase its
> public diplomacy efforts to counter China's "vigorous" moves on the
> outreach front, was prepared at the request of Senator Richard Lugar
> of Indiana, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations
> Committee.
> 
> --
> Rebecca MacKinnon
> Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
> Co-founder, GlobalVoicesOnline.org
> Cell: +1-617-939-3493
> E-mail: rebecca.mackinnon at gmail.com
> Blog: RConversation.blogs.com
> Twitter: @rmack
> Facebook: facebook.com/rmackinnon


-- 
Sasha Costanza-Chock, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Annenberg School for Communication & 
Journalism, University of Southern California

Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

http://schock.cc
e: costanza AT usc.edu
t: +1 607 351 5559