[NYTr] You Just Have to Howl... USAID Screening Aid Groups for "Terrorism"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[USAID, which has funded terrorist covert operatives and false-flag
operations for decades -- gun-runners, drug-runners, assassins,
propagandists, murderers and thieves -- either directly or through
proxies like the National Endowment for Democracy [sic], is now going
to start makiing sure that recipients of their largesse aren't
terr'ists. At least, not unless they are our terr'ists. Hilarious.-NYTr]

sent by rick kissell

Foreign Aid Groups Face Terror Screens

By Walter Pincus

The Bush administration plans to screen thousands of people who work 
with charities and nonprofit organizations that receive U.S. Agency for 
International Development funds to ensure they are not connected with 
individuals or groups associated with terrorism, according to a recent 
Federal Register notice.

The plan would require the organizations to give the government
detailed information about key personnel, including phone numbers,
birth dates and e-mail addresses. But the government plans to shroud
its use of that information in secrecy and does not intend to tell
groups deemed unacceptable why they are rejected.

The plan has aroused concern and debate among some of the larger U.S. 
charitable organizations and recipients of AID funding. Officials of 
InterAction, representing 165 foreign aid groups, said last week that 
the plan would impose undue burdens and has no statutory basis. The 
organization requested that it be withdrawn.

"We don't know who will do the vetting, what the standards are and 
whether we could answer any allegation," said an executive for a major 
nongovernmental organization that would be subject to the new 
requirements and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did 
not want to harm his organization's relations with the government.

The Global Health Council, an international membership alliance of 
public health professionals in more than 100 countries, yesterday 
described the plan as "a sweeping information-gathering and 
recordkeeping measure that would impose a high administrative burden."

The Federal Register notice said the program could involve 2,000 
respondents and "will become effective on August 27," the last day that 
public comments about it are to be submitted. Harry Edwards, a
spokesman for USAID, said yesterday that the agency may not stick to
that starting date, but he said the agency would not discuss the
origins or any details of the program until the comment period
concludes.

The program is described in the notice as the Partner Vetting System.
It demands for the first time that nongovernmental organizations file 
information with the government on each officer, board member and key 
employee and those associated with an application for AID funds or 
managing a project when funded.

The information is to include name, address, date and place of birth, 
citizenship, Social Security and passport numbers, sex, and profession 
or other employment data. The data collected "will be used to conduct 
national security screening" to ensure these persons have no connection 
to entities or individuals "associated with terrorism" or "deemed to be 
a risk to national security," according to the notice.

Such screening normally involves sending the data to the FBI and other 
police and intelligence agencies to see if negative information
surfaces.

The new system would also require that the groups turn over the 
individuals' telephone and fax numbers and e-mail addresses, another 
indication that those numbers would be checked against data collected
as part of a terrorist screening program run by the U.S. intelligence 
community.

Until now, under an earlier Bush administration initiative, 
nongovernmental organizations had been required to check their own 
employees and then certify to AID that they were certain no one was 
associated with individuals or groups that appeared on applicable 
governmental terrorist listings.

The far broader proposed vetting program would involve U.S.
intelligence and law enforcement agencies and could result in the
denial of applications for funding. But AID is also seeking to withhold
any of its findings from disclosure because the decision would be based
on "classified and sensitive law enforcement and intelligence
information," according to a second Federal Register notice seeking
exemption for the program from the Privacy Act.

"USAID cannot confirm or deny whether an individual 'passed' or
'failed' screening," the notice says, to protect "counterterrorism and 
counterintelligence missions as well as the personal safety of those 
involved in counterterrorism investigations."

According to the federal notice, the new system has its roots in a 2003 
congressional amendment, attached to the foreign operations 
appropriations bill, that required the secretary of state to "take all 
appropriate steps" to ensure that U.S. funds involved in the West Bank 
and Gaza Strip program do not reach any person or group that is known
or "there is reason to believe advocates, plans, sponsors, engages in
or has engaged in terrorist activities."

A 2005 Government Accountability Office study of the West Bank and Gaza 
assistance program found inconsistencies in its implementation, 
particularly with AID's scrutiny of sub-awardees and consulting 
agreements. AID's office there responded by collecting more complete 
biographical data and verifying information provided by awardees.

AID officials told the GAO that six organizations that had been cleared 
to receive U.S. assistance were later found to have possible links to 
terrorists, including Hamas. One group never received any funds, three 
of the projects had already been finished, one contract was canceled, 
and the remaining one was cleared to continue after further
investigation.

Samuel A. Worthington, InterAction's president, wrote AID last week 
requesting that the new vetting system -- known as PVS -- be withdrawn 
and urging a dialogue about it. In a telephone interview yesterday, 
Worthington said, "We had been aware internal discussions about PVS
were underway, but when we asked we were told that AID had to talk to 
everyone or to no one."

Worthington, who is also chief executive officer of Plan USA, a 
62-country, child-focused development organization with an annual
budget of more than $530 million, said that "USAID has not demonstrated
a need for such a system." He also said that there is no statutory
basis for the program and that it would place a major burden on
nongovernmental organizations whose workforces include as many as
20,000 employees.