In late December, Steve Feldstein started to hear murmurings out of Iran that the government was making it harder to communicate online.

I was speaking to folks and I really started to hear that there was either word in the street that shutdowns were coming, and there were the beginnings of different

areas that were starting to experience partial internet disruptions.

Steve studies the intersection of technology and national security at the Carnegie Endowment

for International Peace. He worked for the State Department under President Obama.

How quickly did your brain go to, oh, they're going to turn off the internet?

I would say right away.

We start today's other headlines in Iran.

Across that country, internet and phone service were almost completely shut off

amid widening protests over the state of the country's economy.

I've been tracking these issues for many years at this point.

I've seen it happen in Iran. I've seen it happen in other countries in a region.

And I've seen it happen around the world.

So as you can see, the leadership in Tehran is responding with an incredibly harsh crackdown.

This is really part and parcel of the regime's playbook.

And as protests start to really escalate, I thought to myself,

well, if they get out of hand, which most likely they could,

or they might, because of the economic crisis,

then a natural turn to would be shutting off the internet.

This during a 48-hour period that will go down in the history books

as one of the bloodiest clampdowns on street protests in modern times.

Over the past few weeks, activists say some 6,000 Iranians have been killed in the regime's crackdown on national protests.

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