The removal of the Iranian Communications Center in the US opens up a thorny precedent

In a surprise action on Tuesday, the U.S. government intercepted more than 30 connected websites Government of Iran, disrupting access to state-sponsored media. U.S. officials said the action was created terrorist misinformation divided into zones and breaking penalties. Freedom of the press argues that the removal of warnings has much broader implications for freedom of expression rights and external relations.

Affected sites included English and Arabic Press TV and Al-Alam outlets and others such as Al-Masirah TV Yemen’s Houthi channel. He was all led by the Islamic Radio and Television Union of Iran. The DOJ also demolished three sites linked to the Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary group Kata’ib Hizballah. The move expands on the controversial precedent created by the Trump administration, even more so because of the inappropriate and seemingly uncoordinated nature of the operation.

“It’s really not clear why the U.S. government acted on those specific sites and why now, or what the standard of intervention is,” he says. Evelyn Douek, A researcher and professor at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University at Harvard Law School. “One of the basic principles of the right to freedom of expression is that restrictions on government speaking must be transparent and justified, and that is not happening enough.”

Operation Biden administration is trying to negotiate with Tehran, including President-elect Ebrahim Raisi, to support Iran’s nuclear program and militias representing the Middle East. But the hijacking of the website’s domain seemed poorly coordinated, with access to the site up and down by then. Notes on the front pages of the affected sites said the domain was taken over by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Industry and Security, the Export Enforcement Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Other parts of some sites continued to operate initially, however. The Department of Justice did not formally approve or confirm the initiative within hours of the website users noticing the effects.

“Components of the Iranian government … disguised as a news organization or media, were targeted in the United States with disinformation campaigns and ill-influence operations,” the Justice Department wrote late Tuesday statement. “Thirty-three websites hijacked today were managed by IRTVU.” The DOJ said the 33 domains were purchased through a U.S. registrar, but that IRTVU did not obtain a license from the Foreign Assets Control Office to do so — putting sites in violation of the sense.

It was an operation not the first time U.S. government agencies have targeted it News sites sponsored by the Iranian state. But domain hijackings can interrupt the service for a long time and usually return the site with a changed URL. Press TV said quickly on Tuesday transition From “.com” to “.ir”, which would not be handled by a US-based domain registrar.

“Part of the broader trend is that Trump’s maximum pressure sanctions on Iran have led to the removal of some Iranian sites by the Department of Justice and Finance, as well as platforms such as Twitter and Instagram,” says Narges Bajoghli, an assistant professor of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University. .

US social media companies strive to crack down on Iranian disinformation campaigns on their platforms more and more focused extractions to limit their impact on users. Previously done by the DOJ He worked with Google, Facebook and Twitter to monitor Iranian sites that spread misinformation. In 2020, the Trump administration conducted domain hijackings in the Fars News Agency, in the .com versions of the IRNA newspaper, and dozens of other domains U.S. officials said they were using it to spread illegal misinformation. The DOJ has not stated whether it has worked with social media companies in this week’s removal round.