Editing Freedom House (section)

=== Relationship with the U.S. government ===
In 2006, the ''[[Financial Times]]'' reported that Freedom House had received funding by the State Department for "clandestine activities" inside [[Iran]]. According to the ''Financial Times'', "Some academics, activists and those involved in the growing US business of spreading freedom and democracy are alarmed that such semi-covert activities risk damaging the public and transparent work of other organisations, and will backfire inside Iran."<ref name="debate">{{cite web|author=Guy Dinmore|date=March 31, 2006|title=Bush enters debate on freedom in Iran|url=https://news.ft.com/cms/s/48d26298-c052-11da-939f-0000779e2340,_i_rssPage=de095590-c8f4-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20150506165937/http://news.ft.com/cms/s/48d26298-c052-11da-939f-0000779e2340,_i_rssPage=de095590-c8f4-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html|archive-date=May 6, 2015|access-date=April 6, 2006|work=The Financial Times}}{{subscription required}}</ref>

On December 7, 2004, former [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House]] Representative and [[Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian]] politician [[Ron Paul]] criticized Freedom House for allegedly administering a U.S.-funded program in Ukraine where "much of that money was targeted to assist one particular candidate." Paul said "one part that we do know thus far is that the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), granted millions of dollars to the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI), which is administered by the U.S.-based Freedom House. PAUCI then sent U.S. Government funds to numerous Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This would be bad enough and would in itself constitute meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. But, what is worse is that many of these grantee organizations in Ukraine are blatantly in favor of presidential candidate [[Viktor Yushchenko]]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=217&Itemid=60|title=U.S. Hypocrisy in Ukraine|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121212002804/http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=217&Itemid=60|archive-date=2012-12-12|author=Ron Paul|author-link=Ron Paul}}</ref>

[[Noam Chomsky]] and [[Edward S. Herman]] have criticized the organization for excessively criticizing states opposed to US interests while being unduly sympathetic to regimes supportive of US interests.<ref name="ManConP28">Chomsky and Herman: ''[[Manufacturing Consent]]'', Vintage 1994, p. 28</ref> Most notably, Freedom House described the [[1979 Rhodesian general election]] as "fair", but described the [[1980 Southern Rhodesian general election]] as "dubious",<ref name="ManConP28" /> and found the [[1982 Salvadoran presidential election]] to be "admirable".<ref name="ManConP28" />