u.s. department of state
It started out in Washington. Then it went to Jakarta. Then across Africa. One version even showed up on Facebook. Within hours, a State Department dissent cable, asserting that President Trump’s executive order to temporarily bar citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries would not make the nation safer, traveled like a chain letter — or a viral video.
![Photo reprinted courtesy U.S. Consulate Chennai via Flickr American Corner Bangalore, by U.S. Consulate Chennai](https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/sites/default/files/styles/275x168/public/uploads/6081505307_288e8307f6_b.jpg?itok=7levPWIh)
The Office of American Spaces under the U.S. Department of State has recently released its annual report. With over 700 spaces across 169 countries, American Spaces "serve as the primary places of ongoing people-to-people connections between the United States and foreign audiences that are essential to advancing U.S. foreign policy objectives." Hosted in embassies, schools, libraries, and other partner institutions, often outside capital cities, these locales aim to further a core tenet of democracy: access to information.