MEXICO CITY -- The Cuban government has arrested an American citizen working on contract for the U.S. Agency for International Development who was distributing cellphones and laptop computers to Cuban activists, State Department officials and congressional sources said Saturday. 
 
 The contractor, who has not been identified, works for Bethesda-based Development Alternatives. The company said in a statement that it was awarded a government contract last year to help USAID "support the rule of law and human rights, political competition and consensus building" in Cuba. 
 
 Consular officers with the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, the capital, are seeking access to the contractor, who was arrested Dec. 5. The charges have not been made public. Under Cuban law, however, a Cuban citizen or a foreign visitor can be arrested for nearly anything under the claim of "dangerousness." 
 
 The detention of an American contractor working for the U.S. government may raise tensions between the Castro brothers' communist government in Cuba and the Obama administration, which has been taking a "go-slow" approach to improving relations with the island. 
 
 The new U.S. policy stresses that if Cuba takes concrete steps such as freeing political prisoners and creating more space for opposition, the United States will reciprocate. 
 
 A senior Republican congressional aide said the American contractor was being held in a secure facility in Havana. 
 
 "It is bizarre they're just holding him and not letting us see him at all," said the aide, who was not authorized to speak on the record. Attempts to reach Cuban government officials to discuss the case were unsuccessful. 
 
 Cellphones and laptops are legal in Cuba, though they are new and coveted commodities in a country where the average worker's wage is $15 a month. The Cuban government granted ordinary citizens the right to buy cellphones just last year; they are used mostly for texting, because a 15-minute phone conversation would eat up a day's wages. 
 
 Internet use is extremely limited on the island. It is available in expensive hotels, where foreign visitors stay, and at some government facilities, such as universities. Cubans who want to log on often have to give their names to the government. Access to some Web sites is restricted. 
 
 A person familiar with the detained American's activity said he was "working with local organizations that were trying to connect with each other and get connected to the Internet and connect with their affinity groups in the U.S." 
 
 The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the case, said Cuban authorities were aware of the project. "Why they picked on this situation," the person said, "is a bit of a mystery." 
 
 Cuba has a nascent blogging community, led by the popular commentator Yoani Sánchez, who often writes about how she and her husband are followed and harassed by government agents because of her Web posts. Sánchez has repeatedly applied for permission to leave the country to accept journalism awards, so far unsuccessfully. ||||| HAVANA  A United States government contract worker, who was distributing cellphones, laptops and other communications equipment in Cuba on behalf of the Obama administration, has been detained by the authorities here, American officials said Friday. 
 
 The officials said the contractor, who works for a company based in the Washington suburbs, was detained Dec. 5. They said the United States Interests Section in Havana was awaiting Cuba’s response to a request for consular access to the man, who was not identified. 
 
 The detention and the mysterious circumstances surrounding it threaten to reignite tensions between the countries at a time when both had promised to open new channels of engagement. American officials said they were encouraged that the Cubans had not publicized the detention, and they said they were hopeful that he might be quietly released. 
 
 Cuba has allowed more citizens than ever to buy cellphones and computers, but even the limited access to digital technology that is available has created problems for the government. Cuban officials have shown particular concern about Yoani Sánchez, a prominent government critic who keeps in touch with thousands of followers with a blog and a Twitter account. 
 
 Recently, the Cuban government denied Ms. Sánchez a visa to accept a prestigious journalism award in New York. President Obama has also made a guest appearance on her blog, sending written answers to questions she submitted to him. 
 
 American programs to promote democracy in Cuba have also been the focus of intense debate in the United States. A 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office found that nearly all of the $74 million that the United States Agency for International Development spent on contracts to foster democracy in Cuba over the previous decade had been distributed, without competitive bidding or oversight, to Cuban-exile organizations in Miami rather than groups in Cuba itself. 
 
 Groups financed by the program, the G.A.O. found, made questionable purchases, including cashmere sweaters and Godiva chocolates. 
 
 In 2008, the Bush administration sought to overhaul the program, promising to award contracts to groups beyond those in Florida and to devote most of the budget to buying communications equipment to help expand Cubans’ access to information. 
 
 The detention of the unidentified American contractor, some Cuba experts said, demonstrated that President Raúl Castro of Cuba had not abandoned the hard-line tactics used for years by his older brother, Fidel, to stifle dissent. 
 
 “Under Cuba’s draconian laws,” said José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch, “even the act of handing out cellphones to government critics can be considered a crime.” 
 
 Still, Mr. Vivanco and others said that the contractor’s covert conduct  which included entering Cuba on a tourist visa without proper documents  also raised questions about whether Mr. Obama would fulfill his promise to break with the confrontational tactics that Washington has employed toward Havana for five decades. 
 
 “President Obama’s been different in some areas,” said Phil Peters, a Cuba expert and a vice president of the Lexington Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. “But most of his policy remains the Bush policy, and this is just another example of that.” 
 
 The detainee, officials said, was employed by Development Alternatives Inc., which had at least $391,000 in government contracts last year. Based in Bethesda, Md., the company is a kind of do-it-all development company that provides services to the United States government in countries around the world. 
 
 Company officials did not respond Friday to requests for comment. On its Web site, the company describes the breadth of its activities, saying, “We help hillside farmers raise their incomes in Haiti, strengthen the credit system for Moroccan entrepreneurs, harmonize natural resource use in the Philippines, mitigate conflict in Liberia, and foster responsive local governments in Serbia.” 
 
 It was unclear exactly what the company’s employee was doing at the time he was detained. 
 
 Cellphones and computers are available for sale in Cuba, prompting some to question why Cuba decided to crack down on an activity that has long been treated as more of an annoyance than a crime. When it comes to satellite phones, however, the Cubans have taken a far harder line. 
 
 Mr. Obama had promised a more open relationship with Cuba, announcing not long after taking office that he would lift restrictions on travel to Cuba for Americans with relatives on the island. He has expanded cultural and academic exchanges between the United States and Cuba. And he began high-level talks on migration, drug trafficking and postal services with the Cuban authorities, discussions that President Bush had halted. 
 
 But in recent weeks relations seem to have hit a new stalemate, with Mr. Obama signaling that he was reluctant to create more diplomatic openings until Cuban officials demonstrated a willingness to address the country’s poor human rights record. 
 
 Ricardo Alarcón, the speaker of Cuba’s National Assembly, said he had heard nothing about the detention of the American. He termed the policy changes instituted so far by Mr. Obama as “minor” and described the White House as too distracted by other issues to focus attention on Cuba. 
 
 “You have two wars,” he said. “You have the economy. You have the debate on health care. It is clear to me that the administration is not prepared at this moment to give a priority to the relationship with Cuba.” 
 
 Congress is considering bills that would lift restrictions on travel to Cuba for all Americans. Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, added his name last week to a long list of co-sponsors of the measure.
– Cuba has arrested a US government contract worker who was distributing laptops and cell phones in the country. The man works for a company in Bethesda, Md., that does work for various development agencies. It's not clear what he's been charged with—cell phones and laptops are legal, if rare, in Cuba—though it doesn't take much to fall under the Cuban crime of "dangerousness," notes the Washington Post. US officials are awaiting permission to see the man, who was picked up last week, reports the New York Times. The arrest comes amid signs of a thaw between Havana and the Obama administration. "The arrest and detention are clearly wrong," said a spokesman for Human Rights Watch. "An activity that in any other open society would be legal—giving away free cellphones—is in Cuba a crime."