Don’t entirely discount a project only because it is funded by the US government. Do take that as a big yellow flag, but not auto reject. Better to just asses the project for what it is with caution.

I find it much more likely that the US government has a huge interest in giving the public access to secure communication software that would be unbreakable by surveillance from a typical government. Why? Because those are the governments that are enemies of the US, and where the US is interested in regime change. And the existence of this software is much more influential towards regime change in those countries, rather than being threat to the US.

In fact, these softwares are barely a threat to the US. The US has no issue with them existing because they have such a powerful hold on their state.