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--:-- Michelle Martin: Michelle, my bell. I'm trying to think of other songs that feature the word Michelle. Let's not.
--:-- Michelle Martin: French authorities indicted the co-founder of Telegram. He's accused of letting people use his app for crimes and then not cooperating with authorities. What are the implications for other tech giants like Meta and X?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Steve Inskeep with Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The Trump campaign is pushing back against controversy over images taken at Arlington National Cemetery. You guys in the media, you're acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a gravesite.
--:-- Donald Trump: Well, he did use footage from gravesites in a TikTok post. Federal law prohibits the use of cemeteries for political purposes.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And false claims about non-citizens voting are affecting some eligible voters. It doesn't surprise me at all, considering the narrative that's out there right now.
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--:-- Michelle Martin: A French court has indicted tech billionaire Pavel Durov on charges that he allowed a wide range of crimes to flourish on the messaging platform Telegram.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: So the CEO, Pavel Durov, is someone who has long been seen as an anti-establishment figure. He was born in the then-Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. His first big social media company was actually a site called VK, which is Russia's answer to Facebook.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: He famously left Russia in 2014, though, after refusing to comply with the Kremlin's demands that he turn over information about the site's users. This is what prompted him to start Telegram, which he now runs from Dubai.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: And while it's less popular in the U.S., it has nearly a billion users worldwide and is especially popular in countries like Brazil, India, Russia, and Ukraine.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: One thing that users find particularly attractive about the platform is its limited oversight of what users can say or do. But this has also made the app a favorite tool for far-right extremist groups, terrorist organizations, and criminal gangs.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: Is that what led to these charges?
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: Yeah, more or less. So the Paris prosecutor office announced a pretty wide range of charges yesterday evening, but they mostly tied to allegations that Derov was complicit in the spread of all kinds of illegal activities on Telegram.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: So things like the spread of child sexual abuse materials, drug trafficking, and money laundering. French investigators say Derov failed to cooperate with them or provide information that would have helped them shut down these illegal operations.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: And he's now under judicial supervision and is banned from leaving French territory. He also had to post a bond of five and a half million dollars and will be required to report to French police twice a week while he's under investigation.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: And if he's convicted, he could face up to a decade in prison.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: And I should say these charges are groundbreaking in the sense that this would certainly appear to be the harshest action any government has taken against a social media executive to date.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: Okay, France is not the only place where people are worried that these platforms are being used to commit crimes and also to speak social division, which has actually led to violence in many places.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: But there are also the free speech absolutists who consider rulemaking a form of censorship.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: And I take it we're hearing a lot of outrage from some of these folks, especially from other tech moguls.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: Right. And what these tech moguls say is that it is simply not their job to be policing these platforms and that forcing them to do so actually sets a dangerous precedent for free speech on the internet.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: A number of well-known individuals have spoken out against Derov's arrest. You have people like Elon Musk who posted the hashtag FreePovel on his platform X.
--:-- Reporter Rebecca Rossman: But the French government has defended its actions with even French President Emmanuel Macron himself taking to X earlier this week to write his country was, quote, deeply committed to freedom of expression, but that in a state governed by the rule of law, things need to be upheld within a legal framework, whether that's in real life or on social media.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Former President Donald Trump shared a TikTok video, including footage that raises questions about whether it violates federal law against using military cemeteries for campaign purposes.
--:-- Donald Trump: That social media post is how Trump has used video and images taken amid grave sites at Arlington National Cemetery.
--:-- Donald Trump: Trump visited there on Monday, and as NPR has reported, Trump campaign staffers had a physical altercation with an Arlington National Cemetery staffer who tried to reinforce the restriction.
--:-- Donald Trump: The campaign is seeking to downplay the incident.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR's Stephen Fowler is with us with an update and also to talk about the political implications of this incident.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: Good morning, Michelle.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So Trump was at Arlington Monday for a remembrance of the third anniversary of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan in which 13 U.S. service members were killed.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: And he posted a video about it online. So just remind us of what the controversy is about.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: There's three key things to note about this story, first broken by our colleague Quill Lawrence. One, a pair of Trump campaign staffers had a verbal and physical altercation with an Arlington staffer who tried to stop them from filming in a part of the cemetery known as Section 60 because it's against the rules.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: Two, federal law also prevents the use of cemeteries as backgrounds or props for political campaigns.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: Three, the Trump campaign did it anyways with pictures and now a TikTok video showing Trump and some family members of the deceased posing at headstones.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: And what are those family members saying?
--:-- Stephen Fowler: Well, in a statement from the Gold Star family members that invited Trump, they say they gave approval for his videographer and photographer to document the emotional moment.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: It's also important to note the family members who invited Trump also spoke at the Republican National Convention, like Cheryl Jules, who's the aunt of Sergeant Nicole Gee, one of the 13 service members killed in the attack at Abbey Gate.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: They used that time on stage to bash President Biden and vocally endorse Trump. Donald Trump loves this country and will never forget the sacrifice and bravery of our service members. Join us in putting him back in the White House.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Even though they were okay with the cameras, the families don't have the power to suspend the rules.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: Also, NPR has learned the family of a Green Beret who died by suicide, whose headstones visible in those pictures and videos, did not give permission to be included, which highlights one reason for the ban on campaigning in such a sensitive environment.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So what has been the Trump campaign's response to this, the information, the reporting about this altercation, other than putting out a video that does seem to be, you know, flouting these rules?
--:-- Stephen Fowler: There's been some nastiness in the response. A Trump campaign spokesman said the Arlington representative was, quote, clearly suffering from a mental health episode.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: And on the campaign trail yesterday, Trump vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance said Vice President Kamala Harris could, quote, go to hell over the Afghanistan withdrawal and blamed reporters for the controversy.
--:-- Michelle Martin: You guys in the media, you're acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a gravesite. He was there providing emotional support to a lot of brave Americans who lost loved ones they never should have lost.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And there happened to be a camera there and somebody gave him permission to have that camera there. He did, in fact, film a commercial there, sort of, which he then put on TikTok.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So obviously we're in the thick of this 2024 presidential campaign. Do we have a sense of how voters might be seeing this or what this adds to our picture of Trump as a candidate and as a once and possibly future commander in chief?
--:-- Stephen Fowler: Well, Trump's also been accused of calling dead soldiers, quote, suckers and losers, stoked controversy for saying civilian Medal of Freedom recipients are much better than those who received the Medal of Honor.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: And so all of these things would be a big deal for any other candidate, but this is a perfect encapsulation of life under Trump.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It is illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections, and there's no credible evidence that it happens in significant numbers.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That has not stopped some politicians from talking as if non-citizens vote or could vote. Republicans talk of them voting for Democrats as they advocate what they describe as ballot security measures.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Joining us now is NPR's Jude Jaffe-Block. She's been covering issues around democracy and how false narratives affect the country.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: Thanks for joining us.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Why are we hearing so many claims about non-citizens voting this year?
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: So Trump has a history of claiming that elections are rigged against him. In 2020, he raised fears around voting by mail.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: And this year, he seized on record crossings by migrants to suggest it's part of a plot to steal the election.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: And this rhetoric is concerning to a lot of people like Jessalyn Singh. She's an attorney at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice which advocates for voting rights.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: It just another tactic to undermine this election and sow doubt in the election and sort of to set up the ability for election deniers to call into question the election results after November 2024.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So Jude, what sort of impact does this rhetoric have in the real world?
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: So first, there's already lots of guardrails that states use to make sure that people are lawfully voting. But at least four states with Republican leadership are announcing new processes and efforts to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: And of course, maintaining voter rolls is a critical election safeguard. The key is how you do it.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: So for one, federal law says it can't happen within 90 days of an election. And you have to be really careful to not mistakenly target eligible voters.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: But in my reporting, I found out these efforts are sweeping up U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: Say more about that. What happened to these voters?
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: One of them is William Pritchett. He's 59. He was born and raised in Alabama, has always been a U.S. citizen. He's one of 3,200 people in Alabama who are getting letters from election officials saying they could be non-citizens, so their voter registration is now inactive.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: The letter says if you are a U.S. citizen and eligible to vote, you should re-register. It's not really clear at this point how Pritchett got flagged, but it shows these methods are prone to error.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: Pritchett quickly updated his registration, but he thinks the whole effort is misguided.
--:-- Jude Jaffe-Block: It doesn't surprise me at all, considering the narrative that's out there right now, where they're basically trying to convince people that the election will be decided by non-citizens that are voting or whatever, which is, in my opinion, is a false narrative.
--:-- Michelle Martin: I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- Michelle Martin: For your next listen, Consider This, which is the name of a podcast that goes deep on one big story of the day.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kevin Drew, Megan Pratt, Brett Neely, Alice Wolfley, and Jan Johnson.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Nina Kravinsky.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We get engineering support from Carly Strange and our technical director is Stacey Abbott.
--:-- Michelle Martin: We hope you'll join us again tomorrow.
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