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

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.

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