4 ms·

.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 punis

.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?

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?