Tuesday, federal investigators charged four Americans with participating in a malevolent operation to disseminate pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri, expanding a previous case in which a Russian operator was accused of illegally employing influence agents in the United States.

Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov was charged with working for years on behalf of Russian government officials to fund and manage radical political parties in the United States, after the FBI expressed interest in the alleged actions during a series of searches conducted last summer. Ionov is accused, among other things, of providing political campaign advice to two unnamed Florida candidates for public office.

It is believed that the FSB, a Russian government intelligence agency, supervised Ionov’s influence operations.

Authorities accuse four Americans of working for Ionov through organizations such as the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia, and an unnamed political group in California.

According to AFP, three of the four APSP members are also accused with operating as unregistered agents of Russia, which carries a five-year sentence in addition to the conspiracy charges, which carry a ten-year maximum sentence.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the DOJ’s press release regarding the indictments, adding, “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

It appears that the United States has also chosen to eliminate these liberties.

This fake and racist case flows from the Russiagate hysteria that convinced millions of Americans that Russia was paying dissident groups to destabilize the US political system

The FBI was unable to find anything real, so it went after the African People’s Socialist Party https://t.co/C1fUn2pyuW

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 19, 2023

The superseding indictment that contains these allegations uses a great deal of verbal gymnastics to conceal the fact that the DOJ is bringing legal actions against US citizens for political speech and activities that contradict US government policy. The grand jury asserts that the aforementioned Ionov “directed” these Americans to “publish pro-Russian propaganda” and “information designed to cause dissension in the United States.”

Omali Yeshitela, one of the four Americans accused in the indictment and founder and leader of the African People’s Socialist Party, has categorically denied having ever worked for Russia. Before being charged earlier this month, he was quoted by the Tampa Bay Times as saying, “I ain’t ever worked for a Russian. Never ever ever ever. They know I have never worked for Russia. Their problem is, I’ve never worked for them.”

It is essential to remember, however, that this should not matter. The First Amendment prohibits the government from interfering with an individual’s freedom of speech and association. This entails being as outspokenly pro-Russian as one desires and advancing whatever political agendas one deems appropriate, regardless of whether doing so serves the Russian government’s interests. The indictment accuses the four Americans of engaging in “agitprop” by “writing articles that contained Russian propaganda and disinformation.” However, even if we assume that this is both (A) a quantifiable claim and (B) a proven fact, the government is constitutionally prohibited from suppressing propaganda and disinformation.

The government’s claim that the First Amendment is being “weaponized” and should therefore be disregarded is illogical. You cannot have your government define permissible speech and what constitutes “agitprop” and “disinformation” because they will always interpret these terms in a way that benefits the government, thereby increasing the power of the powerful and decreasing that of the people. You can always count on the powerful to make these distinctions in a manner that benefits themselves, so you cannot have your government determine which political groups are genuine and which are foreign government proxies.

The US through the National Endowment for Democracy has created armies of organizations carrying out malign influence operations around the world including here in Thailand.

When the Thai government attempts to stop this activity, the US embassy shouts "free speech." https://t.co/5MeXFlyzEO

— Brian Berletic (@BrianJBerletic) April 19, 2023

The blatant hypocrisy of the situation is also a factor. The US government routinely engages in international influence operations through organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, which was established to aid in the instigation of coups and color revolutions and advance US information interests explicitly in a manner similar to how the CIA used to operate covertly.

Therefore, the US government’s recent assertion that it is appropriate to begin imprisoning US citizens for ten years for publishing “propaganda” for another nation is absurd and quite worrisome. In actuality, the most potent government in the world requires more domestic political dissent than it does less, yet it is endeavoring to criminalize it.

When they say that APSP members published “propaganda” and encouraged “dissent,” they really mean that they engaged in speech and political action that the US government does not approve of. Despite the efforts of spinmeisters and legalese to obfuscate the truth, it is occurring. Allow them no attempt to conceal this from you. They are more concerned that you will stop listening to American propaganda than Russian propaganda.