Designer-Ad-2747

https://www.occrp.org/en/aboutus/who-supports-our-work

US is probably outside their scope

Hi Swiss here,

I see you're funded by the following donors:-U.S. Department of State-U.S. Agency for International Development-Open Society Foundations-Rockefeller Brothers Fund-Open Society Foundations-European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights

I have 3 questions:

1. Do your donors influence who and what you can look into? How can we trust you when all your financing is coming from such powerful groups that seek to influence world politics?
2. What do you think of whistleblowers like Assange and Snowden? Asking as your donors don't really seem to like those two.
3. What got you to do an AMA right now? Surely there's a lot going on with the current situation in Ukraine, so why take the time to do this AMA? Feel like you're a shill in the current information war going on

EDIT: Bonus question: I saw you reposted this AMA only to the following country subs: r/Kyrgyzstan r/azerbaijan r/Kazakhstan r/Switzerland. Why those specifically?

Thanks for the response. I'm always very skeptical of "neutral" reporting into corruption, even here in the west, but I'll make an effort and look into your work. For the Assange/Snowden thing, I still find it odd that an organisation dedicated to uncovering corruption would accept money from groups who tried to silence/imprison them

Well there's no evidence of anything so my reasoning remains purely deductive.

I put myself into the shoes of the OCCRP. As investigative journalists with a dedication to uncovering shady corruption, why would we accept money from the US government? What if we stumble upon material incriminating someone/an organisation they're affiliated with (ie: those Credit Suisse accounts?).

Now I put myself in the shoes of the US dept. of State. What do I have to gain by financing a group trying to dig up dirt on people? What if I end up financing someone like Assange, who causes a PR nightmare to my organisation?

FYI I never claimed the US is interfering with this research, and still believe the OCCPR to be somewhat independent, albeit with some limits as to where they can and can't go. For example while the OCCPR mostly does reports on non-western countries, they did do a report on corruption in Taiwan, Taiwan being an important US ally. However I couldn't find any reports directly looking at western countries (EU/US), which I personally interpret as being the "line" they can't cross. They did mention in their response that they plan to move to "independent donors" in the future, which could be interpreted as them wanting to break away from these "limits".

Anyway all this is purely speculative, I don't hold this as hard truth, just my gut feeling

On 26 November, Assange sent a letter to the U.S. Department of State, via his lawyer Jennifer Robinson, inviting them to "privately nominate any specific instances (record numbers or names) where it considers the publication of information would put individual persons at significant risk of harm that has not already been addressed".[23][24][25] Harold Koh, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, rejected the proposal, stating: "We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials".[25] Assange responded by writing back to the U.S. State Department that "you have chosen to respond in a manner which leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful and you are instead concerned to suppress evidence of human rights abuse and other criminal behaviour".[26][27] Ahead of the leak, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other American officials contacted governments in several countries about the impending release.[28]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United\_States\_diplomatic\_cables\_leak