Sunday, July 26, 2009

American Intervention in Iranian affairs? No way. The US government is far too innocent and would never ever intervene in Iranian affairs.

"The funding increase for “Internet freedom, ’’ as it is called on Capitol Hill, is part of a State Department budget line item labeled Near East Regional Democracy, but details are secret. A Senate budget committee supported the increase, but recommended that $30 million of the funds be devoted to the expanded Internet effort, according to a draft of the Senate appropriation bill. Congressional aides said they expect the funds to be approved, and that Obama supports the Internet effort...The move to fund Internet activists is not entirely new. Although the Bush administration never funded a special Internet initiative, it spent 25 to 40 percent of its Iran democracy promotion money on Internet-related activities, according to David Denehy, who headed the State Department’s Iran grants from 2005 to 2007. “We did a lot of what we would consider cutting-edge, first-generation development [of tools],’’ said Denehy, now a consultant based in Nashua. “A lot of it is venture capital stuff where people are building stuff from the ground.’’ Under Denehy’s tenure, the State Department gave funds to Freedom House, which translated and disseminated a manual called “Everybody’s Guide to Bypassing Internet Censorship,’’ and another on how to do peaceful protests."