White House: Creation Of 'Cuban Twitter' Was Not Covert Program

Enlarge this image toggle caption Ramon Espinosa/AP Ramon Espinosa/AP

The funding of a social media platform designed to undermine the Cuban government was not a covert American operation, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said during his regular press briefing on Thursday.

"The program referred to by the Associated Press was a development program run by the United States agency for International Development and that program was completed in 2012," Carney said. "As you know, USAID is a development agency not an intelligence agency."

The AP broke the story about what it called the "Cuban Twitter" earlier today, saying the U.S. built the social network using secret shell companies and foreign banks. The AP added:

"The project, which lasted more than two years and drew tens of thousands of subscribers, sought to evade Cuba's stranglehold on the Internet with a primitive social media platform. First, the network would build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then, the plan was to push them toward dissent. "Yet its users were neither aware it was created by a U.S. agency with ties to the State Department, nor that American contractors were gathering personal data about them, in the hope that the information might be used someday for political purposes."

Carney went on to say that the U.S. does take steps to be discreet when operating in "non-permissive environments."

A covert operation would be illegal. The AP story doesn't call this a covert program, but it strongly implies that it walks a very thin line.

The AP continues: