Two months ago, the news agency Reuters published an eye-opening cybersecurity investigation bylined by Washington-based reporters and full of news of interest to Americans. But Americans aren’t allowed to read the story anymore — by order of a court in India.

It’s a disturbing turn of events that couldn’t have happened in the pre-internet era, when publishing — and censorship — were largely local affairs.

But what’s going on is not just a tale of a foreign power interfering with the ability of Americans to browse the web as we please. The campaign against the Reuters report has also enlisted some heavy-duty Beltway players.

To back up a bit: On Nov. 16, the wire service published “How an Indian Startup Hacked the World,” an investigation based on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of documents and research from multiple cybersecurity firms. The report detailed how a company called Appin allegedly turned itself into a mercenary hacking outfit, targeting political activists, military officials and businesspeople on behalf of shadowy clients from around the world.

Appin and its co-founder, Rajat Khare, strongly denied the allegations. He told Reuters through an attorney that he was in the business of defending against cyberattacks, not perpetuating them.

Nonetheless, the report landed with a splash. It was quickly aggregated in outlets like Lawfare and Wired and passed around on social media.

You didn’t have to be a cybersecurity geek to want to click. The story was full of wild accounts of alleged hacks involving a Dominican newspaper, a Russian oligarch and an Israeli private eye. For Washington types, there were also allegations of hacks against U.S. victims including a Rwandan exile; security executive Kristi Rogers, who is married to former Michigan GOP Rep. and current Senate candidate Mike Rogers; and the leadership of a Native American tribe amidst a lucrative real estate dispute.

And then, last month, the whole thing abruptly vanished from Reuters’ website — and from many of the outlets that had linked to it.

Online, the roughly 6,000-word report was replaced with a terse statement announcing that the article had been “temporarily removed” in order........

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