If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, has been unprecedentedly indicted by French authorities which are attempting to make him responsible for the actions of some of its almost 1 billion app users. The charges, announced on Wednesday, encompass a series of allegations suggesting illicit activities facilitated via the messaging app, including enabling illegal transactions and failing to cooperate with law enforcement. We obtained a copy of the announcement for you here. Pavel Durov was charged with the following: Complicity in administering an online platform to enable an illicit transaction, in an organized group (a crime punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of €500,000) Refusal to communicate, upon request from the authorized authorities, the information or documents necessary for the performance and exploitation of interceptions authorized by law Complicity in offenses including the unjustified provision of a program or data designed to compromise an automated data processing system, organized distribution of pedo pornographic images of minors, drug trafficking, organized fraud, and forming a criminal association to commit crimes or offenses Money laundering of crimes or offenses in an organized group Providing cryptographic services intended to ensure confidentiality functions without proper declaration Provision and importation of cryptographic means not exclusively ensuring authentication or integrity control functions without prior declaration Durov was released on a €5 million bail, with strict conditions including a prohibition on leaving France and mandatory twice-weekly police visits. The Paris prosecutor’s office detailed the accusations, highlighting the alleged use of Telegram for transactions related to organized crime, including the distribution of child pornography and drug trafficking. This arrest marks a significant moment in the ongoing scrutiny of social networks’ roles in moderating content and cooperating with global law enforcement. The case against Durov began with a preliminary investigation launched in February, followed by arrest warrants issued in March for him and his brother Nikolai, revealing a complex web of legal challenges facing the tech entrepreneur. Durov’s legal representative, David-Olivier Kaminski, expressed dismay at the charges in a statement published by the Agence France Presse news agency. “The only statement I’d wish to make is that Telegram is in conformity with every aspect of European norms on digital matters,” he said. “It is absurd to think that the head of a social network is being charged.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is Formally Charged, Released on €5M Bail appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

A loyal German Shepherd saves her owner's life when they suddenly got attacked by bears during a jog at the Trans Canada Trail in Yukon, Canada on Sunday, June 30.

MSNBC Issues Correction After Claiming Joe Rogan Was Praising Kamala Harris

After nearly 40 days of no interviews or press conferences, Kamala Harris has finally decided to grace CNN’s Dana Bash with her presence in a safe, pre-taped two-on-one interview featuring VP pick Tim Walz. The Harris team certainly knew what they were doing when they selected Bash for this job; she’s been one of TV news’s most persistent Biden White House defenders, and her interviews with Democrats almost always include a handful of softballs and non-questions. Bash surprised just about everyone during the first (and only) presidential debate between Biden and Trump. Despite their obvious disdain for the former President, both Bash and co-moderator Jake Tapper were remarkably reserved. They never interrupted either candidate with unsolicited “fact checks,” they allowed both men roughly the same amount of speaking time, and they even had a few tough questions for President Biden. This upcoming Harris event, however, could be a different story. In interviews like the one planned for Thursday, the journalist is supposed to play the role of the stand-in opponent, pressing the candidate on their policy stances, their vision, and perhaps even their past gaffes. In this kind of role, Bash has a much longer record for us to examine, and it’s not stellar. Here's a sampling: Bash is prone to asking Democrats questions that sound like hardballs for Republicans. For example, she recently teed up Commerce Secretary Pete Buttigieg to excoriate Republican VP Candidate JD Vance’s  “childless cat ladies” comment (“What’s your response to that?”). She played the same game with Senator Laphonza Butler (D-CA) on August 4 of this year, offering her guest free rein to lambast Trump for his comments about Harris’s ethnicity: The former president falsely claimed that the Vice President, quote, “happened to turn black,” for political reasons… You are the only black woman right now serving in the U.S. Senate. You have known the Vice President for a long time. What do you make of all this? While Bash’s bias is obvious during interviews, outside of them it borders on absurd. In March of this year, CNN’s Inside Politics ran a full segment about President Biden’s March Madness bracket, of all things. “President Biden has entered the March Madness chat,” Bash announced excitedly, then asked correspondent Coy Wire, “What do you make of the President’s bracket?” Back when Jack Smith was still the shining hope of pro-Democrat journalists everywhere, Bash wasted an entire segment of her show cooing over “new and exclusive CNN video of the Special Counsel at Subway.” As in, the sandwich shop. She continued: CNN’s Evan Perez was there, trying to track down the Special Counsel. I won’t ask you about all of the less important things about what he got and how he paid, and all that. But what is important is the imagery here. They clearly wanted us to see him. While she’s not subtle about her partisan loyalties, there is admittedly another side to Bash: the one we saw back in late June who defied expectations and delivered a surprisingly fair Trump/Biden debate. Which version of CNN’s Dana Bash will show up on Thursday to speak with Vice President Harris and her emotional support Governor? Only time will tell.

In case anyone actually cares, washed up former CNN host Don Lemon wrote another book… about himself. Since he can’t seem to find anyone who wants to read it, he decided to litter the streets of New York City with this latest piece of garbage: “I’m going to hide more books all around NYC,” wrote Don Lemon, above a video posted on X with the caption “Who will find my unreleased book first?” I'm going to hide more books all around NYC ?? pic.twitter.com/6MSIte2ehB — Don Lemon (@donlemon) August 28, 2024 The ten-second clip shows him propping up one of his books on a traffic pole outside Radio City Music Hall, before scampering away like a giddy child. In typical fashion of an out-of-touch A-lister, he was completely blindsided by the tsunami of X users ratioing him with comments like these: They are all still there. Nobody wants them. Not even the homeless to wipe their ass. — Oreo Express Normal/Not Mentally Ill (@OreoExpress) August 28, 2024 It’s pretty hypocritical of a climate hysteric to litter, as many people have pointed out. littering is a crime https://t.co/MyI6FF8P3H — Tim Pool (@Timcast) August 28, 2024 It never ceases to amaze me how New Yorkers think it’s perfectly acceptable to just dump their garbage on the side of the road.pic.twitter.com/fMHUTqEX2U — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 28, 2024 So, if you happen to be walking down the streets of NYC anytime soon, trip over something next to a pile of hobo droppings and see Don Lemon’s moody headshot above the words “I Once Was Lost,” congratulations! You are one of the lucky winners of Don's word garbage. Like all his other autobiographies, this is a novel about how Lemon is a black, gay victim of oppression, despite having a $12 million net worth. He is likely still outside now, hiding behind the corner, desperately waiting for someone to come read it.

French-Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov founded Telegram in 2013, following Russia’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011. Now one of the largest communication tools in the world, Telegram uses encryption, similar to Signal, to prevent bad actors — whether individuals or corrupt governments — from tracking your communications. Telegram is central to everyday life in places like Russia, Ukraine, and India. In fact, Russia had a problem with the app because Ukrainians were using it for military communications. That’s how secure the encryption is. You would expect societies that claim to champion freedom of speech and privacy to embrace this app, while totalitarian governments that want to control their people's private communication would do everything they could to ban it. Yet it wasn’t Russia, Iran, or China that targeted Durov — it was France. They are coming for Musk, they are coming for Rumble, and they are coming for you. This is not about your digital safety. It is about their quest for power. Authorities arrested Durov at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris earlier this week. The Russian embassy in Paris demanded an explanation from the French government. In response, the French government stated that Durov “was detained by the National Anti-fraud Office over the alleged facilitation of various crimes, including terrorism, narcotics, trafficking, and fraud.” They further accuse him of “allowing an incalculable number of offenses and crimes to be committed” on Telegram “for which he did nothing.” In short, they are charging Durov as an accomplice to the crimes others have committed while using his app. In the United States, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects social media companies from being charged as accomplices to most crimes committed on their platforms. Though French and European law doesn’t fall under Section 230, their double standard for platforms that comply with their censorship campaigns is clear. For example, “60 Minutes” reports that New Mexico's attorney general is accusing Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg of enabling child sex abuse and trafficking on its sites. According to the attorney general’s undercover investigation, Facebook and Instagram's algorithms created a marketplace for the sexual exploitation of children, and Meta enabled adults to find, message, and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos. Will France hold Mark Zuckerberg accountable for enabling child pornography on his platform? Why was Durov arrested for crimes that Meta has repeatedly been proven to facilitate? Could it be because Durov’s product counters government censorship, while Meta has openly complied with it? Europe has been rapidly metastasizing into a global center for censorship, and the EU's Digital Services Act was the final nail in the coffin of what’s left of free speech on the continent. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley rightly called the Digital Services Act “one of the greatest threats to free speech that we have today around the world,” forcing social media companies to flag and report content that the EU deems harmful. Shielded in dull, bureaucratic language, the Digital Services Act empowers the globalist EU government to censor any speech as it sees fit. It emboldens people like Margrethe Vestager, a Danish politician serving as executive vice president of the European Commission for “A Europe Fit for the Digital Age,” to threaten Elon Musk’s X with fines for refusing to comply with its censorship packaged as EU “guidelines." Durov’s arrest has scared the CEOs of other pro-free speech platforms, and rightly so. Rumble founder and CEO Chris Pavlovski said, “I’m a little late to this, but for good reason — I’ve just safely departed from Europe. France has threatened Rumble, and now they have crossed a red line by arresting Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, reportedly for not censoring speech.” “Rumble will not stand for this behavior and will use every legal means available to fight for freedom of expression, a universal human right,” Pavlovski added. “We are currently fighting in the courts of France, and we hope for Pavel Durov’s immediate release.” Elon Musk is also concerned. “It is vital to the support of free speech that you forward X posts to people you know, especially in censorship-heavy countries,” he posted on X (formerly Twitter). He's saying that X posts are going to be hidden in countries like France, and the only way you can see them is if a person from a non-censored country directly sends them to you. Is Facebook held to this standard of censorship too? Alexander Vindman, who was a key witness against Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial, said this in response to Durov’s arrest: While Durov holds French citizenship, is arrested for violating French law, this has broader implications for other social media, including Twitter. There’s a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo [and] malign influence [and] a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be nervous. That’s a threat, coming from a Democratic candidate for Congress no less. Is there really a growing intolerance for platforming “disinformation”? There may be within the elite ruling class but not with the American people. This year at Blaze Media, we are breaking multiple records in our company’s history. We have a bigger impact now than when I was at Fox News. This is especially astonishing given our Facebook numbers. We can’t get any traction on Facebook, but this is not a new battle. It always silences our voice, and your voice, during an election season. And it’s only going to get worse. Durov’s arrest is not an isolated issue. We have felt the rumblings of Europe's seismic shift toward censorship for years, but Durov’s arrest is the first major crack in the ground. The ruling elites want you to fall through the cracks along with him until they and their cronies are the only ones left above ground. They are coming for Musk, they are coming for Rumble, and they are coming for you. This is not about your digital safety. It is about their quest for power. Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has already come under fire for lying about “going to war,” which he did not. Now, he’s once again been caught lying — and his integrity is looking thin to nonexistent. When he launched his campaign for U.S. Congress in 2006, Walz had boasted in his public biography that he was named the Outstanding Young Nebraskan by the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce. “That was nice,” Pat Gray of “Pat Gray Unleashed” comments. “Except, it’s just not true.” “According to the article,” he continues, “it was a small lie about a minor honor.” The Outstanding Young Nebraskan honor can apparently still be found in an archived version on his campaign website, though it’s still untrue. Even the president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce wrote to Walz to object. He reportedly said, “It has come to my attention that as part of your campaign for U.S. Congress, you’ve posted your biography on your website that claims you received an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce for your service to the business community. We researched this matter and can confirm that you have not been the recipient of any award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce.” The Chamber had actually endorsed Walz’s opponent, Gil Gutknecht, a Republican incumbent who had held the seat since 1995. Walz’s campaign manager claimed that he’d actually won an award from the Junior Chamber of Commerce and that the mistake was a “typographical error.” Gutknecht ended up losing to Walz in 2006 and spoke to the Washington Free Beacon that year. He told them that “it fits a pattern of misleading and fabricated statements he has made throughout his political and personal life.” “He’s flat-out lying through his communist teeth,” Gray says, noting that Walz also lied about being a beneficiary of in vitro fertilization. “The excuse that the campaign used then was ‘Oh Governor Walz just talks how normal people talk. He was using commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments,’” Gray continues, adding, “No, what he’s using there is a lie.” Want more from Pat Gray?To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Legend in Her Own Mind Nikole Hannah-Jones Demonstrates Her Grasp of Economics and History is Limited

Detroit News Goes on Archeological Expedition to Gather Kamala Harris Policy Clues

'She Can Go to Hell': JD Vance Goes Beast Mode in Remarks on Afghanistan Debacle, Arlington 'Incident'