According to an article by Natylie Baldwin on antiwar.com, the United States Treasury Department has threatened writers with fines of more than $300,000 if they write for the Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russia-based online journal.

The writers, Daniel Lazare and Michael Averko, reportedly got letters from the Treasury Department, delivered by the FBI, claiming they were in violation of sanctions against SCF and could be subject to a “civil monetary penalty of up to the greater of $311,562 or twice the value of the underlying transaction.” They say that other writers have received similar letters.

The issue here isn’t whether SCF has spread misinformation, as the US government has claimed. It’s whether the government has any business stopping writers from contributing to a publication when they aren’t otherwise committing any crime. If Baldwin’s article hasn’t omitted anything important, there’s no claim that these writers have engaged in threats, espionage, or even disinformation. It’s the act of submitting articles which they’re being threatened with fines for. Moreover, the fines are civil ones, which give the writers less legal protection than if they were charged with a crime.

If this information is accurate and there’s nothing else that would significantly change the circumstances, that’s censorship.

Writers don’t have good options under such circumstances. Just hiring a lawyer can cost more than the expected revenue from a client.

The SCF may well be a scumbag organization that tried to affect US elections by spreading lies. That’s not the issue here. A blanket ban on Americans writing for it is not a legitimate response. Freedom of the press can’t be limited to likable people and popular causes, or it isn’t freedom at all.