Nomination of Michelle T. Friedland to Be US Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit

Floor Speech

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Madam President, we heard news a week or so ago that the U.S. Government, through the Agency for International Development, was conducting a program in Cuba titled ZunZuneo.

It was an attempt to set up a kind of alternative twitter account, and the intent was certainly noble--to increase access of ordinary Cubans to information that would help and assist them.

I have no issue with programs such as this. I think overall they are good. The more we can have people have Internet access and meaningful content is good, but I and many others do have an issue with the Agency for International Development--USAID--undertaking this program.

USAID's mission is to help with humanitarian needs and to promote democratic development around the world. It need not, should not, engage in covert--or in their case they are saying it wasn't covert, they are calling it discreet. Either way, it casts suspicion on other activities that USAID is undertaking around the world.

USAID is in some very tough places around the world--delivering supplies into South Sudan, for example. We work with the people in Syria--not within the country but just outside the country. We work in many dangerous parts of the world, and the last thing we need is suspicion cast on USAID where people think it is an arm of the CIA. It just shouldn't be done. I think USAID does great work around the world and shouldn't involve itself with work of this type.

With regard to Cuba itself, as I said, I think our goal should be to make sure that Cubans are better informed, that we have increased contact, and that we have more American influence there.

That could be most easily forwarded by simply allowing Americans to travel to Cuba. It is the only country in the world where we have a policy that you have to get a specific license--where only certain classes of people are allowed to go there. That simply makes no sense at all.

If our goal is to make sure that Cuban people are aware of what is going on in the world, that they get real information outside of the government sources--the government in Cuba denies Cuban people the ability to get good, meaningful information--we ought to be all about making sure they have access to that, but the best way to do that is simply allowing Americans to travel there. We do that with other repressive regimes around the world.

It has been said--I think Freedom House has Iran as the only government that is more restrictive, more authoritarian, and more repressive than the Cuban regime. Yet we allow Americans to travel to Iran. In Iran, the Iranian Government may restrict who may come in--as will the Cuban Government, I am sure, once we lift our travel ban there. But that ought to be their province. I have often said if someone is going to limit my travel, it should be a Communist government, not my government.

As we review this program and as we talk about it in the coming weeks--we had a hearing this morning with the head of USAID testifying about it--I hope we simply keep in mind the best way to help the Cuban people to have access to information and to have contact with Americans, to be subject to American influence, freedom, and economic opportunity, is to allow Americans to travel freely there. That would do more than any program we could install, any program administered by USAID, the State Department, the CIA or anybody else--just allow Americans to travel to Cuba.

Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. FLAKE. I yield to the Senator.

Mr. DURBIN. I will make a statement in the nature of a question since we discussed this this morning. We had a lengthy discussion in the Foreign Relations Committee about this twitter project, whatever it was, and whether it was wise--and I think it was the consensus of our committee--that if it opens up Cuban people to other ideas and more information, it is a positive thing.

You and I discussed afterward the fact that there are other things we can do. I think you just alluded specifically to them on the floor, and I wanted to associate myself with your thinking on this and hope that after some 50-years-plus, some fresh thinking on our foreign policy in terms of Cuba may lead to what we ultimately want, and that is giving the Cuban people an opportunity to be part of a real democracy and have real freedoms. Isn't that right?

Mr. FLAKE. It is. I thank the Senator.

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