More than 30 advocacy groups sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging his administration and domestic technology companies not to block or restrict internet access for users in Russia, arguing this could unintentionally facilitate efforts to repress those who oppose the war in Ukraine.
“Overly broad restrictions on the access of the Russian people to the internet would further isolate the embattled pro-democracy and anti-war activists, and impede the ability of NGOs, human rights groups, journalists and attorneys inside and outside Russia to provide critical information to citizens about the current state of affairs and their rights,” the groups warned in the letter. A lack of internet access would also cede “complete and total control of information space inside Russia” to that country’s government, they added.
The groups called on the Treasury Department to issue a general license allowing U.S. companies to continue providing the services, software and hardware necessary to enable internet communications despite extensive sanctions on Russia.
Access Now, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Internet Society and World Wide Web Foundation were among those who signed the letter.
In comments to Axios, the White House said the U.S. government has not taken any steps to block Russians' internet access and agreed doing so would serve the Russian government's interests.
The letter comes after internet service providers Cogent and Lumen both moved to cut off operations in Russia. Their actions followed decisions by equipment vendors Ericsson and Nokia to suspend deliveries to the country. Additionally, cloud providers Amazon and Microsoft announced they would no longer accept new customers in the country, while Apple and IBM also halted business there.
Speaking at a Morgan Stanley investor conference this week, Lumen’s President of Global Customer Success, Wholesale and International Laurinda Pang said before the shutdown it had been delivering service primarily to multi-national companies outside of Russia. Its disconnection impacts “all business services” offered in Russia. However, she noted it would continue to provide service to Russian entities outside the country so long as those companies were not sanctioned.
Pang added “I think it’s important to note that we don’t have any consumer customers in Russia, so it’s not a matter of us disassembling their ability to communicate or connect.”
During a recent earnings call, Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer said Russia was a “relatively small” market for the company but noted it did provide services to “most of the Russian carriers, including the national incumbent.”