13 ms·

.Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

56 points by pera 9y ago

faragon 9y ago
.cat domains work properly, e.g. http://www.elperiodico.cat http://www.elperiodico.cat (tested from Barcelona) TL;DR: if you break the law, expect to get punished. The operators knew they were breaking the law, so involved sites in that domain were blocked. I.e. not a ".cat" generic blockage, but a specific action driven from a court.
- princekolt 9y ago
  Did you even read the article? Or did you just jerk-reply in an effort to criticize people or the movement? > First, the content in question here is essentially political speech, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled as deserving of a higher level of protection than some other forms of speech. Even though the speech concerns a referendum that has been ruled illegal, the speech does not in itself pose any imminent threat to life or limb. What the Spanish government did is considered censorship under any reasonable system of law. Justifying one "wrong" with another is not gonna get anyone anywhere anytime. But since the Spanish government is fond of censorship, this reaction shouldn't come as a surprise.
  - fabianmg 9y ago
    > What the Spanish government did is considered censorship under any reasonable system of law. That's simply put... bulshit, I'm far from supporting the ultra right wing catholic goverment from Madrid, but spreading plain lies to victimize yourself doesn't make them true.
    - lostmsu 9y ago
      Could you elaborate why it is bullshit? Parent's comment seems to be a very good point. Is he factually incorrect? How?
      - euyyn 9y ago
        To start, the judiciary isn't part of the Spanish government, it's an independent branch like Congress. Like in most or all western countries. These actions have been taken by the order of Catalan judges. If someone thinks the laws the judges are interpreting are unconstitutional, or against European treaties, they can denounce those laws against the Spanish Constitutional Court, or the appropriate European court. If they think the interpretation is what's flawed, they can appeal and / or denounce the judges to the Spanish Supreme Court. If the argument would become that the judiciary is corrupt and owned by the Government, from the Barcelona courts all the way up to the Supreme Court; it should be remembered that the Spanish Supreme Court sentenced a Ministro del Interior (like Secretary of State, the de-facto most powerful position after the President) to 10 years in prison.
  - fabianmg 9y ago
    There's a system of law in Spain, is called the constitution. And the unilateral call for seccession or doing a referendum not allowed by the constitution or the courts is not allowed in any democracy. I'm in favor of a referendum so the catalans can decide if they want to be in Spain or not. But I'm not in favor of a unilateral decision.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      That’s not an option, the rules of the European Convention on Human Rights – which protect this - stand above the spanish constitution. I expect this will go further up to the European Court of Human Rights, and, like in previous cases where for example German law (and constitutional changes) conflicted with these protections, the European Convention on Human Rights will be ruled to stand above any national law or constitution.
    - tbatchelli 9y ago
      Yeah, my grandfather was also given a death sentence under the rule of the law, because of his political ideas. That was Spain. Laws can be immoral. Breaking immoral laws is a duty of everyone. Now these immoral laws are applied to Catalans who want to vote, but next it can be you. Women wouldn't be voting if they never broke the law first. Giving a Tax amnesty to very rich tax dodgers (as the current Spanish government has done recently) has been ruled to be against the Rule of The Law and the Spanish Constitution, yes? Who is going to jail for this? No one. The constitution only matters when it matters to some.
    - princekolt 9y ago
      No one here is discussing whether the referendum is legal or not, but you keep bringing this subject up. I am not Catalan or even Spanish, so I don't care a bit for it. What's being argued here is that seizing the .cat TLD when a page registered in it was hosting "unlawful" content consists in pure and simple censorship. It would be similar to the US government taking control of the .com TLD because some website hosted on a .com domain is selling drugs. This is censorship. To quote the article (which apparently you didn't read) again: > Whether it's allegations of sedition or any other form of unlawful or controversial speech, domain name intermediaries should not be held responsible for the content of websites that utilize their domains. If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet.
  - faragon 9y ago
    It was not political speech: the blocked site included private information of citizens (census), without permission. You can not use your power as regional government to ignore the Constitution. In addition, the web is now hosted in another domain, against the law, not because of "free speech", but because of using protected private information from citizens: https://onvotar.garantiespelreferendum.com/on-votar/index.html https://onvotar.garantiespelreferendum.com/on-votar/index.ht... This is not about "free speech", but about the sublevation of a regional government, against the rule of law, i.e. against citizen's rights.
    - Oletros 9y ago
      Bullshit, then block the domain, not seize the TLD registar. This is a very dangerous precedent And yes, I think that the CONTENT is ilegal and I would denunce it if my data is there, but the TLD has nothing to do with that
  - tirant 9y ago
    In the broad sense of the word, yes, it is censorship. But I do not think it falls under political speech. The content blocked is content being announced by an official entity (Generalitat) containing information about the unilateral organization of a referendum. The Generalitat as an official organism needs to abide by the existing constitutional laws. The judge as initial measure, has dictated to retrieve all official material with information regarding the organization of the referendum. No other pages from dotCAT have been seized, including unofficial ones with information about the referendum. The EFF should also take into account that the Generalitat has unlawfully obtained private information from millions of citizens in order to be able to create a list of possible voters.
    - Oletros 9y ago
      And this is what EFF says: >Whether it's allegations of sedition or any other form of unlawful or controversial speech, domain name intermediaries should not be held responsible for the content of websites that utilize their domains. If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet.
- pera 9y ago
  I am trying to follow the situation in Catalonia, and I have one question: Is any kind of publication (done by private citizens) about the referendum actually illegal in Spain? Thanks.
  - fabianmg 9y ago
    Not about the referendum, but about what happened last days: https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/20/inenglish/1505917320_788824.html https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/20/inenglish/1505917320_78...
    - pera 9y ago
      That seems to be in reference to the referendum website operated by the local government (http://www.referendum.cat/ http://www.referendum.cat/), but I read several reports of private citizens with no affiliation with Catalonia's govt being raided by the police just for mirroring websites.
      - faragon 9y ago
        It is mirrored, without problem: https://onvotar.garantiespelreferendum.com/on-votar/index.html https://onvotar.garantiespelreferendum.com/on-votar/index.ht... I don't know if the EFF is aware that the site has citizen personal information without permission. Who protects us as citizens against rebel regional government putting online private information against the rule of law?
        pera 9y ago
        The mirrors I checked didn't include that section (@1506104335). Instead they said: > Shortly the Government will release the details on the polling stations to be used for the 1st October Referendum.
        Oletros 9y ago
        The mirror includes all the data and it gives you the place to vote after entering your NIF and age. Time to denunce to AEPD
- Oletros 9y ago
  How is TLD having a domain name registered breaking the law?
fabianmg 9y ago
Also, the didn't government didn't ruled the referendum illegal a constitutional COURT did it. And the detentions and search were ordered by a JUDGE from Barcelona that not long ago was awarded by the same Catalan government that now is criticizing him. Please read this to know the facts: https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/20/inenglish/1505917320_788824.html https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/20/inenglish/1505917320_78...
- toast0 9y ago
  A court is an arm of the Kingdom of Spain, and a judge is a Kingdom employee. In US parlance, where the EFF is based, we would say the court is an arm of the government, and the judge is a government employee, thus this is a government action. In European parlance, 'the government' often means the currently in-power group of legislative representatives, which causes much confusion in the US when we hear 'a new government was formed in X', or 'the government will be dissolved in Y'.
  - faragon 9y ago
    Spanish King has no actual power, we have a democratic monarchy.
    - tbatchelli 9y ago
      Monarchies are not democratic. Unless I can vote the King, that is.
      - skwirl 9y ago
        What if your elected representatives can vote to abolish the royalty?
        tbatchelli 9y ago
        Good point. I believe you could.
      - 9y ago
fabianmg 9y ago
The .cat domain was seized because the organization in charge of the domain IGNORED the orders issued by a JUDGE. So saying: > "If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet." Is simply put, bulshit. A court ordered taking down illegal calls to a referendum not approved by a democratic consitution. If that was ignored, someone had to take action.
- snakeanus 9y ago
  DNS servers do not have "illegal calls" (read: thoughtcrimes) for the independence of any country. These are served by the server that the DNS points to and only on the request of the client.
- antaviana 9y ago
  "Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal" - Martin Luther King, Jr.
  - euyyn 9y ago
    Hyperbole much?
    - flyingfences 9y ago
      Not really. We're talking about a government using its violent abilities to censor dissent.
      - euyyn 9y ago
        You're misinformed. What's being prevented is politicians paying this with public money. Basque and Catalan independence can be talked about freely, and has been talked about non-stop for many years, including in Congress.
- Oletros 9y ago
BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
Before anyone goes rushing off to make sure that their favorite (nyan?) .cat domain is still up: > ... .cat domains not connected with the October 1 referendum (including eff.cat, EFF's little-known Catalan language website) have not been affected. A more accurate title might have been "Individual .cat domains promoting sedition casualties in...", which is not what it currently seems like it means.
sctb 9y ago
Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15296359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15296359
enriquto 9y ago
It is interesting to note that Assange and Snowden seem very interested in the catalan issue these last days. https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/911226994846814208 https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/911226994846... https://mobile.twitter.com/Snowden/status/910888878948700160 https://mobile.twitter.com/Snowden/status/910888878948700160
- faragon 9y ago
  According to El Pais (first Spanish generalist -i.e. non-sports- newspaper in audience), the Russian intelligence is behind the support to Catalan separatists, like before pushed for the Brexit, Trump, and Le Pen: https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/09/22/actualidad/1506101626_670033.html https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/09/22/actualidad/1...
  - enriquto 9y ago
    I understand that many people here dislike El Pais; but please, do not link continuously at their most outrageusly ridiculous articles. There are still reasonable writers there. Not many, of course, but they are still there.
snvzz 9y ago
What happened here: - judge told .cat TLD to take over some domains, setting them to display a spanish police landing page. - .cat complied. - Judge told .cat TLD to censor any domain that does support the referendum in any way. - .cat replied that they run a TLD, that it's not their job to act as a censorship agency, inspecting each domain and disabling those that host websites that talk about topics that a judge specified are forbidden. - .cat notified the ICANN of the situation they're in: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/lineros-to-marby-17sep17-en.pdf https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/lineros... - police raided the TLD office, and arrested its CTO at his home.

56 points by pera 9y ago

.cat domains work properly, e.g. http://www.elperiodico.cat http://www.elperiodico.cat (tested from Barcelona) TL;DR: if you break the law, expect to get punished. The operators knew they were breaking the law, so involved sites in that domain were blocked. I.e. not a ".cat" generic blockage, but a specific action driven from a court.

princekolt 9y ago
Did you even read the article? Or did you just jerk-reply in an effort to criticize people or the movement? > First, the content in question here is essentially political speech, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled as deserving of a higher level of protection than some other forms of speech. Even though the speech concerns a referendum that has been ruled illegal, the speech does not in itself pose any imminent threat to life or limb. What the Spanish government did is considered censorship under any reasonable system of law. Justifying one "wrong" with another is not gonna get anyone anywhere anytime. But since the Spanish government is fond of censorship, this reaction shouldn't come as a surprise.
- fabianmg 9y ago
  > What the Spanish government did is considered censorship under any reasonable system of law. That's simply put... bulshit, I'm far from supporting the ultra right wing catholic goverment from Madrid, but spreading plain lies to victimize yourself doesn't make them true.
  - lostmsu 9y ago
    Could you elaborate why it is bullshit? Parent's comment seems to be a very good point. Is he factually incorrect? How?
    - euyyn 9y ago
      To start, the judiciary isn't part of the Spanish government, it's an independent branch like Congress. Like in most or all western countries. These actions have been taken by the order of Catalan judges. If someone thinks the laws the judges are interpreting are unconstitutional, or against European treaties, they can denounce those laws against the Spanish Constitutional Court, or the appropriate European court. If they think the interpretation is what's flawed, they can appeal and / or denounce the judges to the Spanish Supreme Court. If the argument would become that the judiciary is corrupt and owned by the Government, from the Barcelona courts all the way up to the Supreme Court; it should be remembered that the Spanish Supreme Court sentenced a Ministro del Interior (like Secretary of State, the de-facto most powerful position after the President) to 10 years in prison.
- fabianmg 9y ago
  There's a system of law in Spain, is called the constitution. And the unilateral call for seccession or doing a referendum not allowed by the constitution or the courts is not allowed in any democracy. I'm in favor of a referendum so the catalans can decide if they want to be in Spain or not. But I'm not in favor of a unilateral decision.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    That’s not an option, the rules of the European Convention on Human Rights – which protect this - stand above the spanish constitution. I expect this will go further up to the European Court of Human Rights, and, like in previous cases where for example German law (and constitutional changes) conflicted with these protections, the European Convention on Human Rights will be ruled to stand above any national law or constitution.
  - tbatchelli 9y ago
    Yeah, my grandfather was also given a death sentence under the rule of the law, because of his political ideas. That was Spain. Laws can be immoral. Breaking immoral laws is a duty of everyone. Now these immoral laws are applied to Catalans who want to vote, but next it can be you. Women wouldn't be voting if they never broke the law first. Giving a Tax amnesty to very rich tax dodgers (as the current Spanish government has done recently) has been ruled to be against the Rule of The Law and the Spanish Constitution, yes? Who is going to jail for this? No one. The constitution only matters when it matters to some.
  - princekolt 9y ago
    No one here is discussing whether the referendum is legal or not, but you keep bringing this subject up. I am not Catalan or even Spanish, so I don't care a bit for it. What's being argued here is that seizing the .cat TLD when a page registered in it was hosting "unlawful" content consists in pure and simple censorship. It would be similar to the US government taking control of the .com TLD because some website hosted on a .com domain is selling drugs. This is censorship. To quote the article (which apparently you didn't read) again: > Whether it's allegations of sedition or any other form of unlawful or controversial speech, domain name intermediaries should not be held responsible for the content of websites that utilize their domains. If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet.
- faragon 9y ago
  It was not political speech: the blocked site included private information of citizens (census), without permission. You can not use your power as regional government to ignore the Constitution. In addition, the web is now hosted in another domain, against the law, not because of "free speech", but because of using protected private information from citizens: https://onvotar.garantiespelreferendum.com/on-votar/index.html https://onvotar.garantiespelreferendum.com/on-votar/index.ht... This is not about "free speech", but about the sublevation of a regional government, against the rule of law, i.e. against citizen's rights.
  - Oletros 9y ago
    Bullshit, then block the domain, not seize the TLD registar. This is a very dangerous precedent And yes, I think that the CONTENT is ilegal and I would denunce it if my data is there, but the TLD has nothing to do with that
- tirant 9y ago
  In the broad sense of the word, yes, it is censorship. But I do not think it falls under political speech. The content blocked is content being announced by an official entity (Generalitat) containing information about the unilateral organization of a referendum. The Generalitat as an official organism needs to abide by the existing constitutional laws. The judge as initial measure, has dictated to retrieve all official material with information regarding the organization of the referendum. No other pages from dotCAT have been seized, including unofficial ones with information about the referendum. The EFF should also take into account that the Generalitat has unlawfully obtained private information from millions of citizens in order to be able to create a list of possible voters.
  - Oletros 9y ago
    And this is what EFF says: >Whether it's allegations of sedition or any other form of unlawful or controversial speech, domain name intermediaries should not be held responsible for the content of websites that utilize their domains. If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet.
pera 9y ago
I am trying to follow the situation in Catalonia, and I have one question: Is any kind of publication (done by private citizens) about the referendum actually illegal in Spain? Thanks.
- fabianmg 9y ago
  Not about the referendum, but about what happened last days: https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/20/inenglish/1505917320_788824.html https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/20/inenglish/1505917320_78...
  - pera 9y ago
    That seems to be in reference to the referendum website operated by the local government (http://www.referendum.cat/ http://www.referendum.cat/), but I read several reports of private citizens with no affiliation with Catalonia's govt being raided by the police just for mirroring websites.
    - faragon 9y ago
      It is mirrored, without problem: https://onvotar.garantiespelreferendum.com/on-votar/index.html https://onvotar.garantiespelreferendum.com/on-votar/index.ht... I don't know if the EFF is aware that the site has citizen personal information without permission. Who protects us as citizens against rebel regional government putting online private information against the rule of law?
      - pera 9y ago
        The mirrors I checked didn't include that section (@1506104335). Instead they said: > Shortly the Government will release the details on the polling stations to be used for the 1st October Referendum.
        Oletros 9y ago
        The mirror includes all the data and it gives you the place to vote after entering your NIF and age. Time to denunce to AEPD
Oletros 9y ago
How is TLD having a domain name registered breaking the law?

fabianmg 9y ago

Also, the didn't government didn't ruled the referendum illegal a constitutional COURT did it. And the detentions and search were ordered by a JUDGE from Barcelona that not long ago was awarded by the same Catalan government that now is criticizing him. Please read this to know the facts: https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/20/inenglish/1505917320_788824.html https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/20/inenglish/1505917320_78...

toast0 9y ago
A court is an arm of the Kingdom of Spain, and a judge is a Kingdom employee. In US parlance, where the EFF is based, we would say the court is an arm of the government, and the judge is a government employee, thus this is a government action. In European parlance, 'the government' often means the currently in-power group of legislative representatives, which causes much confusion in the US when we hear 'a new government was formed in X', or 'the government will be dissolved in Y'.
- faragon 9y ago
  Spanish King has no actual power, we have a democratic monarchy.
  - tbatchelli 9y ago
    Monarchies are not democratic. Unless I can vote the King, that is.
    - skwirl 9y ago
      What if your elected representatives can vote to abolish the royalty?
      - tbatchelli 9y ago
        Good point. I believe you could.
    - 9y ago

fabianmg 9y ago

The .cat domain was seized because the organization in charge of the domain IGNORED the orders issued by a JUDGE. So saying: > "If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet." Is simply put, bulshit. A court ordered taking down illegal calls to a referendum not approved by a democratic consitution. If that was ignored, someone had to take action.

snakeanus 9y ago
DNS servers do not have "illegal calls" (read: thoughtcrimes) for the independence of any country. These are served by the server that the DNS points to and only on the request of the client.
antaviana 9y ago
"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal" - Martin Luther King, Jr.
- euyyn 9y ago
  Hyperbole much?
  - flyingfences 9y ago
    Not really. We're talking about a government using its violent abilities to censor dissent.
    - euyyn 9y ago
      You're misinformed. What's being prevented is politicians paying this with public money. Basque and Catalan independence can be talked about freely, and has been talked about non-stop for many years, including in Congress.
Oletros 9y ago

BugsJustFindMe 9y ago

Before anyone goes rushing off to make sure that their favorite (nyan?) .cat domain is still up: > ... .cat domains not connected with the October 1 referendum (including eff.cat, EFF's little-known Catalan language website) have not been affected. A more accurate title might have been "Individual .cat domains promoting sedition casualties in...", which is not what it currently seems like it means.

sctb 9y ago

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15296359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15296359

enriquto 9y ago

It is interesting to note that Assange and Snowden seem very interested in the catalan issue these last days. https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/911226994846814208 https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/911226994846... https://mobile.twitter.com/Snowden/status/910888878948700160 https://mobile.twitter.com/Snowden/status/910888878948700160

faragon 9y ago
According to El Pais (first Spanish generalist -i.e. non-sports- newspaper in audience), the Russian intelligence is behind the support to Catalan separatists, like before pushed for the Brexit, Trump, and Le Pen: https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/09/22/actualidad/1506101626_670033.html https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/09/22/actualidad/1...
- enriquto 9y ago
  I understand that many people here dislike El Pais; but please, do not link continuously at their most outrageusly ridiculous articles. There are still reasonable writers there. Not many, of course, but they are still there.

snvzz 9y ago

What happened here: - judge told .cat TLD to take over some domains, setting them to display a spanish police landing page. - .cat complied. - Judge told .cat TLD to censor any domain that does support the referendum in any way. - .cat replied that they run a TLD, that it's not their job to act as a censorship agency, inspecting each domain and disabling those that host websites that talk about topics that a judge specified are forbidden. - .cat notified the ICANN of the situation they're in: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/lineros-to-marby-17sep17-en.pdf https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/lineros... - police raided the TLD office, and arrested its CTO at his home.