USAID chief to face questions on 'Cuban Twitter'
USAID chief to face questions on 'Cuban Twitter'
By DESMOND BUTLER and JACK GILLUM, Associated Press | April 8, 2014 | Updated: April 8, 2014 3:40am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development on Tuesday begins a series of appearances before lawmakers who are asking questions about his agency's secret "Cuban Twitter," a social media network built to stir unrest in the communist island.
First up to question agency head Rajiv Shah is Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who publicly called the social media program "dumb, dumb, dumb."
Last week, an Associated Press investigation revealed that USAID oversaw the creation of the text message-based service, dubbed ZunZuneo for the sound made by a Cuban hummingbird. USAID and its contractors went to extensive lengths to conceal Washington's ties to the project, according to interviews and documents obtained by the AP.
A key question for the hearings will be whether or not the program endangered its users by concealing that the U.S. government was behind the program. The network was publicly launched shortly after the 2009 arrest in Cuba of American contractor Alan Gross. He was imprisoned there after traveling repeatedly on a separate, clandestine USAID mission to expand Cuban Internet access using sensitive technology that only governments use.
Lawmakers will also try to determine whether the program should have been classified as "covert" under U.S. national security law, which requires covert action to be authorized by the president and briefed to congressional intelligence committees.
More:
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/USAID-chief-to-face-questions-on-Cuban-Twitter-5384467.php