The U.S. Open Technology Fund, a digital rights nonprofit financed by the U.S. government, is poised to cancel a contract for encryption software that helps people living in repressive regimes access impartial news without their government’s knowledge, according to a U.S. government official with direct knowledge of the matter.
OTF pays around $2 million to software developer Psiphon each year, making it the most expensive encryption software the group funds.
Psiphon, based in Canada, makes internet circumvention software tools that many audiences around the world depend on to access U.S. taxpayer-funded news content without their government knowing they’re accessing it.
One audience that is especially dependent on Psiphon’s software is Iran, where people consume Voice of America and Radio Farda, the Persian-language arm of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Some 80 percent of VOA’s Iranian audience accesses it using the tool, as does 20 percent of their China audience.
OTF is financed by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, a taxpayer-funded media group now headed up by Michael Pack, a Steve Bannon ally.