Friday, April 29, 2011

AFP Was Right: U.S. Funding Arab Uprisings

The New York Times and The Washington Post have finally admitted what AMERICAN FREE PRESS (AFP) asserted as far back as Feb. 14:
There is much more to the so-called “grassroots” revolutions in the Mideast than meets the eye.

While critics accused AFP of purveying “conspiracy theories,” the Times and the Post have now laid it on the line: American tax dollars have bankrolled a host of both private and quasi-public institutions that have been underwriting the revolutionary activity wreaking havoc throughout the Arab world.

The first inkling came in a report buried inside the Post on March 10, under the headline “U.S. funds web firms that help Mideast dissidents skirt censors.” The report read in part:

The Obama administration may not be lending arms to dissidents in the Middle East, but it is offering aid in another critical way: Helping them surf the web anonymously as they seek to overthrow their governments. Federal agencies—such as the State Department, the Defense Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors—have been funding a handful of technology firms that allow people to get online without being tracked or to visit news or social media sites that governments have blocked.Many of these little-known companies—such as the Tor Project or UltraReach— are unabashedly supportive of the activists in the Middle East. . . .

Federal agencies have funded these companies through grants and contracts. By late spring, the State Department is expected to begin doling out even more money—about $30 million—to technology firms and human rights groups that help and train people to shatter [Internet security] and surf the web without being tracked.