In a joint statement on Saturday, Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, both Republicans, said Mr. Pack’s attempts to strip the Open Technology Fund of access to U.S. government funding for the next three years, called debarment, would be a significant setback to U.S. foreign policy objectives.
The effort “is a blow to democracy movements around the world who rely on their services to push back on authoritarian regimes,” they said. “This latest attempt by CEO Pack to circumvent Congress and gut the Open Technology Fund, which is a lifeline for freedom fighters around the world, is absolutely unacceptable and will endanger democracy movements, and lives, across the globe.”
The Open Technology Fund became the target of Mr. Pack shortly after he took office. He moved to fire the fund’s board in June. That decision was challenged in the federal courts. A federal judge has temporarily overturned Mr. Pack’s decision until a final ruling is issued.
In June, Mr. Pack temporarily withheld millions in funding to the nonprofit. In response, 527 human rights organizations and internet freedom groups — including Human Rights Watch and the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia.com — called on members of Congress to protect the nonprofit group from Mr. Pack’s actions.
Much of the worry around the Open Technology Fund revolves around its leadership’s resistance toward funding a piece of firewall circumvention software called Ultrasurf, developed by a member of the Falun Gong, the secretive, spiritual movement persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party. The group has embraced Mr. Trump for his anti-China stances.
Michael J. Horowitz, a Reagan administration budget official and longtime supporter of Ultrasurf, went on Mr. Bannon’s show in June denouncing Libby Liu, the Open Technology Fund’s founder, saying she should be fired. Ms. Liu — who was dismissed by Mr. Pack in June — is not a proponent of funding Ultrasurf, a current official at the Open Technology Fund said.

Source: New York Times

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