State Dept. allowing global censorship hub to hide government grants from American taxpayers
By isabelle // 2024-11-25
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A global censorship hub known as the National Endowment for Democracy has gone out of its way to hide information about the government grants it receives and awards, potentially violating the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act – but it turns out they have an agreement with the State Department to keep quiet about it. This is according to the Foundation for Freedom Online, who reports that NED has received hundreds of millions of American taxpayers’ dollars and has not been up front about it. Audits reveal that they have failed to comply with the transparency requirements since at least 2021 and have not made any effort to correct their failure to provide public reports of their grantmaking activities. NED’s website says that its purpose is “to support the projects of non-governmental groups abroad who are working on democratic goals in more than 100 countries,” but it has long been accused of being engaged in censorship. It has sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Global Disinformation Index’s American nonprofit groups, which were earmarked for developing “disinformation” risk ratings in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The Global Disinformation Index was responsible for a report listing a number of conservative American news and opinion sources that it claims are peddling “disinformation” and should therefore be avoided by advertisers, including The Federalist, The New York Post, Newsmax, and American Spectator, among others. According to NED’s Financial Report for FY23, not only was NED not held accountable by the federal government for its lack of transparency, but they also received special authorization from the State Department to obscure its tax money spending trail. They reportedly entered an agreement with the State Department’s Grants Officer to give their federal appropriation for 2024 a “sensitive” designation, permitting them to avoid legal obligations to reveal this information to the public – even though the public is paying for it. Just how much money are we talking about here? Estimates for FY 2023 and FY 2024 stand at $315 million per year, while their request for 2025 is $300 million. Their budget has risen dramatically during the last two decades, with a two-thirds increase approved by Congress in 2020. The current $315 million represents an all-time high for the endowment. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act compels them to post information about federal spending on a searchable website. This means that if they, for example, spent the government funds boosting censorship efforts abroad, they would need to specify that in public reports on sites like the federal government’s open-source spending database, usaspending.gov.

NED claims it needs to skirt the regulations to protect "sensitive" information

Independent audits of NED have shown, year after year, that they are in “noncompliance with Rules and Regulations with regards to Reporting Requirements under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA)”, but for some reason, the State Department seems all too happy to look the other way and let them get away with excuses like protecting overseas partners. NED management claims: “This flexibility is essential to NED’s sensitive grantmaking program, where we often must make quick adjustments to anonymize information when partners face new risks in their operating environment. In total, NED currently has more than 700 grants in 50 countries requiring special protection of grantee identities.” In other words, they are hiding behind the idea of protecting “sensitive” information so they can continue to receive the government’s support in censoring conservative voices. Unfortunately, NED has made it clear that they have no plans to ever disclose how they are spending so many of our tax dollars, noting in a 2023 statement regarding their noncompliance: “We have since received NED’s annual award for 2024 with the language matching several of our special funds DOS awards: “This award has been deemed sensitive and is not subject to the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA).” We expect the same terms to apply to our awards going forward, ensuring a permanent resolution to this issue.” Sources for this article include: FoundationForFreedomOnline.com WashingtonExaminer.com
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