1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Open Technology Fund Authorization Act . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) The political, economic, and social benefits of the internet are important to advancing democracy and freedom throughout the world. (2) Authoritarian governments are investing billions of dollars each year to create, maintain, and expand repressive internet censorship and surveillance systems to limit free association, control access to information, and prevent citizens from exercising their rights to free speech. (3) Over two-thirds of the world’s population lives in a country where the internet is restricted, and governments shut down the internet over 200 times each year. (4) Internet censorship and surveillance technology is being exported rapidly around the world, particularly by the Chinese Government, enabling widespread abuses by authoritarian governments. 3. Sense of Congress It is the sense of Congress that it is in the interest of the United States to promote global internet freedom by countering internet censorship and repressive surveillance and protect the internet as a platform for the free exchange of ideas, promotion of human rights and democracy, and advancement of a free press and to support efforts that prevent the deliberate misuse of the internet to repress individuals from exercising their rights to free speech and association, including countering the use of such technologies by authoritarian regimes. 4. Establishment of the Open Technology Fund (a) In general The United States International Broadcasting Act of 1994 ( 22 U.S.C. 6201 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 309 the following new section: 309A. Open Technology Fund (a) Authority (1) In general Grants authorized under section 305 shall be available to make annual grants for the purpose of promoting, consistent with United States law, unrestricted access to uncensored sources of information via the internet to enable journalists, including journalists employed by or affiliated with the Voice