efforts

The United States has imposed visa bans on five Europeans, including a former European Union commissioner, accusing them of pressuring tech firms to censor and suppress “American viewpoints they oppose”.

In a statement on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterised the individuals as “radical activists” who had “advanced censorship crackdowns” by foreign states against “American speakers and American companies”.

“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,” he said on X.

“The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” he added.

The most prominent target was Thierry Breton, who served as the European commissioner for the internal market from 2019-2024.

Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy, described the French businessman as the “mastermind” of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a landmark law intended to combat ​hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation on online platforms.

Rogers also accused Breton of using the DSA to threaten Elon Musk, the owner of X and a close ally of US President Donald Trump, ahead of an interview Musk conducted with Trump during last year’s presidential campaign.

‘Witch hunt’

Breton responded to the visa ban in a post on X, slamming it as a “witch hunt” and comparing the situation with the US’s McCarthy era, when officials were chased out of government for alleged ties to communism.

“To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is,” he added.

The others named by Rogers are: Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of HateAid, a German organisation, and Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).

French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot “strongly” condemned the visa restrictions, stating that the EU “cannot let the rules governing their digital space be imposed by others upon them”. He stressed that the DSA was “democratically adopted in Europe” and that “it has absolutely no extraterritorial reach and in no way affects the United States”.

Ballon and von Holdenberg of HateAid described the visa bans as an attempt to obstruct the enforcement of European law on US corporations operating in Europe.

“We will not be ‌intimidated by a government that uses accusations of censorship to silence those who stand ⁠up for human rights and freedom of expression,” they said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the GDI also called the US action “immoral, unlawful, and un-American”, as well as “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship”.

The punitive measures follow the Trump administration’s publishing of a National Security Strategy, which accused European leaders of censoring free speech and suppressing opposition to immigration policies that it said risk “civilisational erasure” for the continent.

The DSA in particular has emerged as a flashpoint in US-EU relations, with US conservatives decrying it as a weapon of censorship against right-wing thought in Europe and beyond, an accusation Brussels denies.

The legislation requires major platforms to explain content-moderation decisions, provide transparency for users and grant researchers access to study issues such as children’s exposure to dangerous content.

Tensions escalated further this month after the EU fined Musk’s X for violating DSA rules on transparency in advertising and its methods for ensuring users were verified and actual people.

Washington last week signalled that key European businesses – including Accenture, DHL, Mistral, Siemens and Spotify – could be targeted in response.

The US has also attacked the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, which imposes similar content moderation requirements on major social media platforms.

The White House last week suspended the implementation of a tech cooperation deal with the UK, saying it was in opposition to the UK’s tech rules.

After steadily gaining power and influence for more than a decade, the watchdogs that provide civilian oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department face an uncertain future.

A recent leadership exodus has left behind gaps in experience and knowledge, and a succession of legal challenges and funding cuts by the county have left some concerned that long-fought gains in transparency are slipping away.

“It is beginning to look like the idea of effective oversight of the Sheriff’s Department is a pipe dream,” said Robert Bonner, former chairman of the Civilian Oversight Commission, who announced in June that he was being pushed into “involuntarily leaving” before he completed pending work.

Current and former oversight officials have argued that the office of county counsel, the Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff’s Department have repeatedly undermined efforts to rein in law enforcement misconduct.

The cumulative effect, some advocates worry, is that the public will know less about law enforcement activity, and that there will be fewer independent investigations into deputies and department leaders alike.

“The Sheriff is committed to transparency in law enforcement,” the department said via email. “As we move forward it is essential to strengthen collaboration with the [Civilian Oversight Commission] while ensuring that the rights and safety of our personnel are protected.”

In recent years, oversight bodies have uncovered information about so-called deputy gangs, published reports on inhumane jail conditions and issued subpoenas for records related to on-duty use of force incidents.

Inspector General Max Huntsman’s sudden announcement last week that he was retiring from the position he’s held since its creation more than a decade ago completed a trifecta of departures of top law enforcement oversight officials this year.

In addition to Bonner’s departure, former Civilian Oversight Commission chairman Sean Kennedy stepped down from the body in February in response to what he described as improper county interference in the commission’s activities.

L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna, right, talks with Sean Kennedy during an event on April 5 in Baker. Kennedy left his position on the Civilian Oversight Commission earlier this year.

(William Liang / For The Times)

Kennedy and others have said the Sheriff’s Department has refused to comply with multiple subpoenas by the commission for personnel files and records related to deputy misconduct.

“The attack on integrity and on oversight capacity is threatening all of us in Los Angeles County,” Hans Johnson, who took over as chairman of the Civilian Oversight Commission following Bonner’s departure, said at a recent public meeting. “We look forward to making sure that oversight is preserved and protected and not muzzled and not unplugged or sabotaged.”

The Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors said in a statement that it maintains a “long-standing commitment to strong oversight.”

The Sheriff’s Department said only one request it has received from oversight officials this year remains pending.

“The Department remains committed to working cooperatively to provide all requested information as required by law,” the statement said.

On the state level, reform advocates recently scored what they described as a victory for transparency.

In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill known as AB 847, which granted civilian oversight bodies across California the ability to view confidential law enforcement records in private sessions. L.A. County officials had previously balked at sharing certain sensitive files on sheriff’s deputies, and some reformers worry the new law may not go far enough.

Dara Williams, chief deputy of the Office of the Inspector General, said at a July public meeting that the Sheriff’s Department has a history of being “painfully slow” to respond to requests for records related to homicides by deputies. In one instance, she said, Huntsman’s office served the department with a subpoena in October 2024 “and we are still waiting for documents and answers.”

The Sheriff’s Department said it has hired an outside attorney who is “conducting an independent review” of its records to determine if “those materials actually exist and can be found.”

The department’s statement said it will abide by the law and that protecting confidential information “remains of the utmost importance.”

Some involved in oversight have also become the subject of probes themselves.

In June, the Office of the County Counsel said it was investigating Kennedy for alleged retaliation against a sergeant who had worked for a unit that had been accused of pursuing cases for political reasons during Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s tenure.

Kennedy has denied the allegations, telling The Times in June, “I was just doing my job as an oversight official.”

Budget cuts — some already instituted, others threatened — are also a concern.

Huntsman said earlier this year that the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors was reassigning or eliminating a third of his staff.

Former L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman listens during a hearing at Loyola Law School’s Advocacy Center on Jan. 12, 2024.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

He too left amid acrimony with county officials.

“The County has made it very clear over the past couple of years that they are not going to enforce the state oversight laws,” Huntsman told The Times. “Instead the county supports the sheriff limiting the flow of information so as to restrict meaningful oversight.”

The Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors said the changes implemented this year have had a “minimal” impact that “neither limits OIG’s responsibility nor their capacity.”

The possibility of eliminating the Sybil Brand Commission, which monitors L.A. County jails, was discussed in an August report to the Board of Supervisors. County officials said it would save about $40,000 annually.

Sybil Brand commissioner Eric Miller told The Times in September that he believes “the county is attempting to limit oversight of the Sheriff’s Department … to avoid lawsuits.” The department, he said, “is a powerful constituency within the county.”

In September, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta launched a state lawsuit over what he described as a “humanitarian crisis” inside L.A. County jails.

There are even concerns that the Sheriff’s Department is seeking greater control over local groups that facilitate conversations between deputies and members of the public — often some of the only opportunities for community concerns to be heard.

In the Antelope Valley, the Palmdale Sheriff’s Station Community Advisory Committee has been roiled by allegations that a local Sheriff’s Department captain appointed a new member without other members’ approval.

The chair of the committee, Georgia Halliman, resigned in October and committee member Sylvia Williams has alleged that the Sheriff’s Department captain tried to force her out.

“I was going to leave, but they need someone who’s real in there,” Williams told The Times. “You have to have an overseer.”

The department said it is reviewing the situation.

Melissa Camacho, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, said the county is at a crossroads.

“The main question right now is what is the county going to do?” she said. “Is this going to be a moment when the Board of Supervisors decides to actually invest in oversight?”

This week is shaping up to be crucial for the European Union’s policy on Ukraine. EU foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday; EU heads of state will gather on Thursday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting United States envoy Steve Witkoff. At the top of the agenda is the peace plan put forward by US President Donald Trump and continuing funding for Ukraine’s war effort.

The European strategy so far has been to alter the US-proposed peace plan in such a way that it becomes completely unacceptable to Russia. This, as European leaders hope, will reinforce the core narrative emanating from their capitals over the past two months – that Russian President Vladimir Putin is just playing games and doesn’t really want peace.

The idea behind it is to try to sway Trump to their side and have him apply additional military and economic pressure on the Kremlin rather than pressing Ukraine into signing an unsavoury peace deal right away. But this effort could easily backfire.

The main practical issue with regards to Ukraine’s capacity to withstand Russian aggression during 2026 is who is going to fund its army as well as its state and social welfare system. Trump proudly states that the US is no longer financing Ukraine’s war effort because, in his parlance, it is “Biden’s war” – ie, his predecessor Joe Biden is to blame.

The burden of funding is now squarely on Europe – the EU and rich non-EU countries, such as the United Kingdom and Norway. The US keeps providing weapons to Ukraine, but these are being paid for with money from European coffers. US intelligence support, crucial in Ukraine’s war planning, is currently available to Kyiv for free.

European leaders have been vocal and aggressive throughout the year in rejecting any realistic compromise that could end the war. But even as 2025 is ending, there is no clarity as to how they are going to back up their jingoistic rhetoric with sufficient funding that would allow Ukraine not just to stay afloat but tip the balance in the conflict in its favour.

Their plan A is what they call the reparations loan. It envisages using the assets of the Russian Central Bank frozen by European banks to fund the Ukrainian defence. This means that rather than spending the money on actual reparations – as in Ukraine’s post-war restoration – it would be spent on the war itself.

The thinking behind this plan is that once Russia suffers a strategic defeat, it would retroactively agree to the confiscation rather than demand its money back, so European governments would not have to reach into their coffers to return the money to the Russians.

The obvious problem here is that exactly nobody – except war cheerleaders who have been promising Russia’s defeat for the past four years – believes this outcome is even remotely realistic. Belgium, which holds the bulk of these assets, is equally sceptical, which is why it opposes this plan. It has been joined by a growing number of EU states, including the Czech Republic and Italy.

The other big problem is that Trump’s peace plan has radically different designs for the assets in question. It envisages using them as actual reparations, as in spending them on restoring Ukraine’s economy. Most crucially, Moscow has on numerous occasions signalled that it agrees with this part of the plan. It considers the money lost and wants to make sure neighbouring Ukraine does not turn into a failed state.

This means that if the reparations loan plan goes ahead, it would undermine the most attractive provision of Trump’s plan. If this happens, the US and the EU may find themselves more at odds with each other than they already are, and that would hardly sway Trump.

His administration has indicated on a number of occasions that it could walk out of the peace process if it is derailed, which means ending any help to Ukraine, be it with weapons or intelligence.

The reparations loan plan also comes with an enormous risk for the European economy. The confiscation of Russian assets would discourage any central bank in the world from keeping its money in Europe, meaning the European banking system stands to lose.

More importantly, this move cannot guarantee that Ukraine would be able to stop Russia’s slow but steady advancement. Securing funding for another year under the current circumstances basically means that more Ukrainian lives and territory will be lost in 2026.

This money cannot in effect counter the biggest threat to Ukraine and its neighbours right now: that of Russia precipitating a humanitarian catastrophe that could spill over into the region by devastating Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this winter. The latest blackout in Odesa when the whole city was left without water and heating in the middle of winter is a dark prelude of things to come.

All this warrants the question of why European leaders are acting the way they are now. Could their irrational radicalism be explained by their extensive political investment in delusional outcomes of this war that they have been selling to voters for the past four years? Or are they engaging in incessant moral posturing so as to avoid being scapegoated for the real outcome of the war?

There is probably a bit of both. But there is perhaps also an even more sinister motive, recently expressed by Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference: the idea that “as long as this war is being fought, … Europe is safe because the Ukrainians have successfully tied down this mighty Russian army.” In other words, there are some within the European political elite who perceive ending the war as being against European interests.

But regardless of what those on top think or are motivated by, the war fatigue in Europe is real. The rise of pro-Russia far-right groups in Germany and elsewhere, capitalising on the ruling elites’ shining ineptitude in handling the conflict with Russia, is a clear sign of that.

If the reparations loan scheme does not pass this week, the EU would have to go to plan B, which envisages loaning money from the EU budget. That, of course, would be met with fierce opposition from the European public.

The failure to secure funding for Ukraine may be seen as an embarrassing failure in Europe, but it would make things easier for Zelenskyy. With his administration losing popularity amid continuing military upsets and a major corruption scandal, Ukraine’s president is well on his way to becoming the chief scapegoat in this debacle.

But no more funding from Europe would allow him to declare that the West has betrayed Ukraine and proceed with the inevitable: accepting an unsavoury peace largely on Russia’s terms.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday linked the seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela to the Trump administration’s counterdrug efforts in Latin America as tensions escalate with the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

Noem’s assertion, which came during her testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee, provided the Republican administration’s most thorough explanation so far of why it took control of the vessel on Wednesday. Incredibly unusual, the use of U.S. forces to seize a merchant ship was a sharp escalation in the administration’s pressure campaign on Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the United States.

Trump officials added to it Thursday by imposing sanctions on three of Maduro’s nephews. The Venezuelan leader discussed the rising tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. The Kremlin said in a statement that Putin reaffirmed his support for Maduro’s policy of “protecting national interests and sovereignty in the face of growing external pressure.”

Asked to delineate the U.S. Coast Guard’s role in the tanker seizure, Noem called it “a successful operation directed by the president to ensure that we’re pushing back on a regime that is systematically covering and flooding our country with deadly drugs and killing our next generation of Americans.”

Noem went on to lay out the ”lethal doses of cocaine” she said had been kept from entering the U.S. as a result.

Asked Thursday whether U.S. operations in the region were about drugs or oil, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also gave a bifurcated answer, saying the administration was “focused on doing many things in the Western Hemisphere.” She noted that such seizures could continue, arguing that the commodities being transported were used to fund the illegal drug trade.

“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” she said.

The Justice Department had obtained a warrant for the vessel because it had been known for “carrying black market, sanctioned oil,” Leavitt said, adding that “the United States does intend to get the oil” that was onboard the tanker.

Trump told reporters a day earlier at the White House that the tanker “was seized for a very good reason.” Asked what would happen to the oil aboard the tanker, Trump said, “Well, we keep it, I guess.”

The U.S. has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, a campaign that is facing growing scrutiny from Congress.

Trump, who has said land attacks are coming soon but has not offered more details, has broadly justified the moves as necessary to stem the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the U.S.

Venezuela’s government said in a statement that the tanker seizure “constitutes a blatant theft and an act of international piracy.” Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.