[governance] Inside the State Department’s Arab Twitter diplomacy

[Katitza Rodriguez]

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/28/inside_the_state_department_s_arab_twitter_diplomacy

The State Department has been working furiously and mostly behind the 
scenes to cajole and pressure Arab governments to halt their clampdowns 
on communications and social media. In Tunisia there seem to have been 
real results. In Egypt, it's too soon to tell.

Ever since the State Department intervened during protests by the 
Iranian Green movement in June 2009, convincing Twitter to postpone 
maintenance so opposition protestors could communicate, the U.S. 
government has been ramping up its worldwide effort to set up a network 
of organizations that could circumvent crackdowns on Internet and cell 
phone technologies by foreign governments. That effort faced its first 
two major tests over the last few weeks and the State Department has 
been working with private companies, non-governmental organizations, and 
academic institutions to activate this network and put it to use in real 
time.

"Our mission is to provide a lifeline of protection when people get in 
trouble through a range of support for the activists and the people on 
the ground," Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, 
and Labor (DRL) Michael Posner said in an interview on Friday with The 
Cable. "I think there will be an increase in contacts on several levels 
in the coming days and weeks."

Even before the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, the State Department was 
working to drastically increase its activities with the internet freedom 
organizations, many of them using State Department funding provided 
through a grant program administered by DRL. This month, State announced 
it would spend another $30 million on this project.

For Posner, the drive to create an "open platform" for Internet 
communications is part of the overall drive to protect the universal 
rights the administration has been trumpeting in recent days and that 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid out in her speech on Internet 
Freedom.

"What we're really talking about here is the ability of people to speak 
freely, to demonstrate peacefully, to associate and assemble in the 
public square. These are the human rights that are being restricted," 
Posner said.

In the case of Tunisia, the State Department mixed a strategy of working 
with companies and third party groups with a series of private and 
public communications between the Obama administration and the 
government of now-ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

The effort began shortly after a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed 
Bouazizi, lit himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid on Dec. 17. News of the 
event shot around the country through Twitter and Facebook, sparking a 
wider protest movement. The Tunisian government responded by hacking 
massive amounts of Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail accounts and targeted 
other sites where protestors were convening or communicating.

Facebook contacted the State Department soon thereafter, another State 
Department official told The Cable, asking for assistance and to help 
coordinate the response. Facebook then created an encrypted option for 
accessing the site from Tunisia while the State Department convoked the 
Tunisian ambassador in Washington to complain about the government's 
tactics.

"These tactics were used against American companies, so we have equities 
on multiple fronts," the official said. Assistant Secretary of State 
Jeffrey Feltman delivered a stern message to the ambassador in DC while 
the U.S. ambassador in Tunis Gordon Gray delivered the same message to 
the top levels of Ben Ali's government. When these private efforts to 
convince Tunis to open Internet restrictions failed, senior U.S. 
officials went public with their criticisms.

"We've been in touch with State and a lot of people on the ground and 
helping them navigate any of the blocks the government has put in 
place," said one Washington human rights advocate who was deeply 
involved in the effort.

State Department officials told The Cable that their efforts paid off, 
given that Ben Ali -- before stepping down -- said that he "heard the 
Tunisian people" and removed the blocks on the Internet and social media 
sites, although he had never cut off the entire country from 
communication. The State Department official said that while technology 
was an accelerant for the protests and a way for the protesters to get 
unvarnished information, it did not spur the movement.

"This was not a Twitter revolution. It was not a revolution either made 
possible or successful through the use of applications like Twitter," 
the State Department official said. "It mattered in Tunisia but 
ultimately that was a revolution of, for, and by the Tunisians."

Then came the protests this week in Egypt and the Mubarak government's 
decision on Thursday to cut off all Internet and cell phone service to 
the entire country. This sweeping, unprecedented action stymied both the 
State Department and the private and non-governmental organizations they 
were working with in Egypt.

"When a government literally shuts down the networks, the solutions are 
few. You can't circumvent a complete network shutdown," the State 
Department official said.

"None of this was an issue in Egypt until 24 hours ago," said another 
Washington expert who works on Internet freedom and human rights issues 
in the Arab world.

Nevertheless, the pro-Internet freedom network kicked into high gear, 
looking for loopholes in the blackout and connecting with people on the 
ground via the few pieces of communications technology that were still 
working -- land line telephones and ham radios.

The State Department started sending increasingly strong private 
messages to Cairo, the official said, culminating with Clinton's public 
statement on Friday, when she said, "We urge the Egyptian authorities to 
allow peaceful protests and to reverse the unprecedented steps it has 
taken to cut off communications."

State Department officials also ramped up their coordination with U.S. 
companies, advocacy groups, and universities to share information on 
workarounds and connect these institutions to people on the ground.

The official declined to comment on whether State was pressing Internet 
and cell phone carriers in Egypt to defy the government and restore 
access to services. Vodaphone, for example, said it was "obligated" to 
comply with the Egyptian government's demand to shut down. But the work 
with private entities to restore lines of communication in Egypt continues.

For critics of the administration's stance on the Egypt protests, the 
State Department's furious efforts behind the scenes on the issue of 
Internet freedom are insufficient to compensate for what they see as an 
overall lackluster, and belated, U.S. government response to the crisis.

"The real problem is that when your macro policy and your micro policy 
don't match up, it takes all the credibility away," said Danielle 
Pletka, vice president at the American Enterprise Institute. "It's one 
thing to stand up and say don't shut off access to cell phones, but when 
top administration officials refuse to side with the protestors overall, 
it sends the message that there will be no consequences" for the 
Egyptian government if it chooses to ignore the administration's calls 
for information openness.

The Obama administration knows that their efforts to keep communications 
systems up and running are but a small part of what's needed 
diplomatically in Egypt. But they see it as one more tool they can use 
to pressure the government toward better behavior and find ways to 
protect American citizens and businesses caught in the crossfire.

"None of us are cyber-utopians, we have always been clear eyed about 
this," the State Department official said. "The question is not whether 
tech is good or bad, it's disruptive. And in a disruptive environment, 
the question is, how can you maximize your interests."
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