“EFF has signed on to a letter urging the Office of Foreign Assets Control to protect the free flow of information by issuing a General License for Crimea, as it has done for other countries like Syria and Iran,” the EFF said on Friday. “A General License would authorize the provision of services, software, and hardware incident to personal communication over the Internet.”
Western economic sanctions imposed on Russia have had a disproportionately negative effect on technology and service companies in Crimea, forcing Visa and MasterCard to remove support for bank cards, Apple to block applications for iOS users and Google to cut off access to Play store, AdSense and AdWords, the EFF explained.
“The effect of sanctions on users and developers of technology often harm the very people they're intended to help,” the digital rights group added.
The OFAC is a US Treasury Department agency that enforces economic sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals, according to the OFAC website.
The EFF is a digital civil rights group based in San Francisco, CA that champions issues like user privacy, free expression, grassroots activism and technology development.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have deteriorated since Russia reunited with Crimea in March, 2014, and an armed conflict erupted in Ukraine. The United States and its allies have imposed multiple rounds of economic sanctions on Russia, for alleged interference in Ukrainian internal affairs, which Russian authorities have repeatedly denied.
