U.S. government promoting Internet aggression against Cuba

By Jean Guy Allard | Cuba Debate* | April 7th, 2011

The Department of State and its destabilizing agency USAID project interventionist operations attempting to use the Internet as an instrument of infiltration and intelligence within Cuban national territory

This has been confirmed on the Cuba Money Project website by U.S. journalist and investigator Tracey Eaton, who published a document identified with these U.S. special service agencies, dated January 11, 2011, which reveals how “ideas” are being solicited from non-governmental organizations and specialized businesses interested in carrying out projects related to the use of the Internet “in Cuba and in other nations.”

The document was published shortly before the trial in Havana of U.S. citizen Alan Philip Gross, working under contract for USAID, for his illegal activities.

Proposals could be submitted through February 7. “The Department of State has not specified – and surely, it won’t – what organizations will implement these projects,” writes Eaton, a former correspondent in Havana for the Dallas Morning News.

Budgets that range from $500,000 to eight million are available for these projects, for a total which could reach $30 million, according to her study.

Moreover, the money comes from the 2010 federal budget and not the next year’s.

The Department of State, in a clarification which appears to refer directly to the Alan Gross case or previous intelligence operations, details that the eligible organizations must “have experience of working in hostile environments.”

The focus of these operations, called web-based circumvention technology, is precisely to avoid and disrupt the usual systems of detection (firewalls and filters) used to protect computers from multiple forms of illicit activity on the web, established by legislation in all countries.

The strategy includes a “training program” to develop a “network of instructors” who would undertake operations with “threatened organizations.” Read: organizations operating illegally.

The organizations and businesses invited to submit proposals must be able to “train bloggers, citizen-journalists and civic organizations” and promote the use of new communication person-to-person technologies and “social networks.”

The program even suggests a “defense fund” for activists with legal problems related to hacking and “cyber-intrusion.”

In addition to Cuba, the request for proposals refers to China, Mayanmar, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, all countries which have refused to submit to U.S. domination, utilizing the usual rhetoric about “helping digital activists” – a well-known strategy for recruiting agents and informants practiced by U.S. intelligence services.

“This document contains exactly what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said in a specialized magazine,” according to the U.S. journalist and professor in her revealing investigation.

* Traducido por Granma Internacional