Before the 2010 U.S.-Russia "Civil Society to Civil Society" (C2C) summit, a U.S. House of Representatives representative for the state of Florida's 27th district, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R), was the lead signatory of a written petition which called upon the Obama administration to suspend U.S. participation in the summit until Surkov was replaced as a delegate for the Russian side. In an interview with Radio Free Europe, Ros-Lehtinen explained that she objected to Surkov's attendance as she views him as "one of the main propagators of limiting freedom of speech in Russia, intimidating Russian journalists and representatives of opposition political parties". However, the summit went ahead despite her objections. A 2007 Open Source Center "Media Aid" document identifies the Russian "ura.ru" information website as reportedly having links to Surkov.