Your Connection Was Interrupted

Journalists, Bloggers, Protesters Detained & Jailed

It’s dangerous being a journalist, blogger, or protester these days. The penalty for speaking out against government policies and the official narrative can be harassment, detained & questioned, arrested and jailed with out charges or a lawyer.

The two most recent journalists who have experienced this overreach of the government, are Scott Ritter, and Richard Medhurst from the UK.

Others like myself have been blocked and permanently deleted from YouTube, Facebook and other social media platforms.

But something else is afoot! As most of you know, I have been documenting my findings about Russia since 2016 and in the 4.5 years I have been living in Russia. Because all of my 550 films, videos, and podcasts have countered the official US narrative make, me a “domestic terrorist,” and that’s according to the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and the Domestic Terrorist Act. That’s the law of the land, not only in the USA, but across the EU, most notably in the UK and Germany.

I wonder what would happen to me if I deplaned at JFK in New York on a visit to see my children and grandchildren?

But, that’s not all. For the past two months, my attempts to livestream my video podcast, Dateline: News & Conversation, have been unsuccessful due to my “connection being interrupted.” Conversations either froze up repeatedly or the video and audio quality were very poor.

After spending hours with tech support at Streamyard, my live stream platform, I was told there was no problem on their end. They suggested six steps to solve the problem. None worked!

In addition, my PC suddenly began running slower and typing was erratic.

Finally, I spent almost three hours with a techie friend, a real expert, going through my entire system, and deleting many programs I didn’t know I had and were not needed. He also knew how to trace the path the packets of information had to take to get from Russia to eventual destinations, often making dozens of “hops.” In all cases, it was taking too long and causing the interruptions.

What he determined, in spite of having a very fast local internet, something else was probably the cause. About a month or more, Russia’s Communications Monitoring agency, Roscomnadzor, had been trying to ban YouTube completely in Russia. This initially started slowing downloads to where files would not open. People began to notice this with other platforms as well. In my case, it also happened with Zoom.

At this point, the problem seems to lie with Russia causing havoc along all Russian internet companies, regardless of location. Where I do not believe I am being directly “attacked.” I am perhaps the only filmmaker and blogger living in Russia with content that either tells the truth about what I have found living here, or directly and constantly exposing the lies and evil propaganda of the empire.

Not being able to continue with my shows, I have refocused on filming and documenting life here in Russia and Crimea. This work is exciting, positive and energizing, unlike the effects of being in the global “echo chamber” seven days a week.

I will continue to use Substack as my primary platform to share these videos, but also I will continue to post to several other social media channels such as Rumble, Bitchute, Odysee, VK, Twitter (X), Telegram and Facebook.

Please hang in there. Hopefully, this too shall pass.