[liberationtech] US State Department comments on Internet Shutdown

[Joel Harding]

Note the assistance publicly released.

QUESTION: Do you have any comment on the reports of a hearing about
the internet being cut off across Syria today?

MS. NULAND: We have been learning from local coordinating councils
inside Syria over the last day or so that the regime does appear to be
resorting to cutting off all kinds of communication – cellular
networks, landlines, as well as internet service across the country –
notably in Damascus and the suburbs as well as Hama, Homs, and Tartus.
Obviously, we condemn this latest assault on the Syrian people’s
ability to express themselves and communicate with each other. And it
just, again, speaks to the kind of desperation of the regime as it
tries to cling to power.

QUESTION: And on that point, is there – the U.S. has been providing
communications equipment. Can the groups to whom it’s been provided
continue to communicate without this – without these networks?

MS. NULAND: Yes. We’ve provided some 2,000 communications kits, pieces
of equipment, since this effort began. These are all kinds of things:
computers, phones, cameras. They are all designed to be independent
from and able to circumvent the Syrian domestic network precisely for
the reason of keeping them safe, keeping them secure from regime
tampering, regime listening, regime interruption.

Joel Harding
Information Operations Holistic Organizer (IOHO)
http://toinformistoinfluence.com
(703) 362-8582