U.S. Aid Agency Issues Final Rule for Controversial Security Program

Despite loud protests by international aid groups, the U.S. Agency for International Development has made final the rules for a security program to screen charities and their employees for possible ties to terrorists.

While the move is the last step in the regulatory process, the agency postponed the decision to start the controversial program, known as the Partner Vetting System, or PVS, saying President-elect Barack Obama and his administration would ultimately decide its fate.

“The decision as to whether to implement PVS will be made by the incoming Obama
administration,” the agency writes in today’s Federal Register.

Under the system, nonprofit groups that apply for agency grants and contracts must provide the names of “key individuals” overseeing their projects, including board members, executives, and other employees. The federal government would then check the names against a classified intelligence database that contains information on terrorists.

Agency officials say that the system is needed to make sure U.S. foreign aid distributed in politically unstable regions and war zones is not diverted — intentionally or unintentionally — to terrorists or violent militant groups.

But charity leaders argue it violates the civil rights of their employees and could place aid workers in danger overseas because they would appear to be working as an arm of American security agencies or the military. The nonprofit groups say that there is no substantial evidence that aid money has gone to support terrorists.

In today’s Federal Register, the agency dismissed such concerns. “USAID does not believe that it should wait for hard proof that our funds are actually flowing to terrorists before implementing additional safeguards to its anti-terrorist financing program — even the suggestion that our funds or resources are benefiting terrorists is harmful to U.S. foreign policy and U.S. national
interests,” it writes.

The regulation published in the Register exempts portions of the screening program from privacy laws that govern record-keeping by federal agencies. For example, while the government is required to provide Americans copies of most of the documents it maintains about them, the Vetting System would be exempt from the requirement.

Read The Chronicle’s article about how nonprofit aid organizations are asking Mr. Obama and his aides to change the Partner Vetting System and other Bush administration rules related to foreign assistance.