America First Legal (AFL) is attempting to shed light on the role that the Biden-Harris administration may have played in the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov.
The French-Emirati citizen was arrested in France and charged with a large number of alleged crimes – in effect, failure to censor third-party content that can be qualified as criminal behavior. However, there is suspicion that the real reason is to force Telegram to censor all content, in the style of Google or Meta. The charges also attack encryption.
Announcing its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests regarding the US State Department’s possible involvement in the arrest, AFL noted that the encrypted app is one of the world’s largest, based on the premise of protecting its users’ free speech from what the non-profit dedicated to promoting the rule of law calls “government-sponsored” censorship.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
AFL cites statements made by Mike Benz, founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online and former State Department official, as the reason to suspect the current White House either had advance knowledge or has had its hand in the highly controversial arrest.
If true, AFL doesn’t see this as out of character for the Biden-Harris administration, given its own track record regarding online censorship.
AFL puts its FOIA requests in the context of working to protect freedom of speech, which is guaranteed – or is supposed to be guaranteed – by the First Amendment in the US.
Durov’s arrest is described by AFL Legal Executive Director Gene Hamilton as “troubling.”
“The American people have a right to know whether the Biden-Harris Administration had advance knowledge of the plans to arrest Mr. Durov,” Hamilton is quoted as saying.
The FOIAs state that Telegram is, among close to a billion users, used by millions of political dissidents and freedom fighters around the world, and is endorsed by digital rights groups.
The FOIAs specifically request records that should show whether the administration, prompted by domestic political reasons, engaged in influencing “the criminal justice apparatus of an important ally.”
To this end, AFL wants access to communications with French nationals and/or diplomatic cables that contain the words “Pavel Durov,” “Paul du Rove,” and “Telegram,” and documents or records relevant to the arrest.
The material requested via the FOIA covers the period from May 1 this year, to the date the requests are processed.
