WASHINGTON, AFP March20, 2018  -The US State Department has a $500,000 contract with the British analysis firm facing allegations it misused Facebook user data and offered to dig dirt on its international clients’ election opponents.   

A State Department official told AFP on Monday the agency’s Global Engagement Center has a contract with Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) Group, the parent company of under-fire Cambridge Analytica.   

The agency has no business with CA, but SCL is closely tied to its offshoot and Facebook announced last week that it was suspending both, under the title “SCL/Cambridge Analytica,” from its platform.

   
Analyzing the online profile of suspected jihadists and sympathizers and then “micro-targeting” them for counterpropaganda would be exactly the kind of work that the data-mining firm SCL was set up to do.