6 ms·

While there are more important things in life (like being accused wrongly of child pornography), I wonder how that effects their Google rankings to suddenly hav

by tibbon 16y ago

w1ntermute 16y ago
> Seems that this would trigger unreasonable search and seizure. Oh, I think that boundary was crossed a long time ago. It's more a problem of the US government not giving two fucks about its own Constitution.
- tibbon 16y ago
  I don't know the entire process well, but wouldn't that be something that you'd presumably file in Federal District court and start there? Once/if it hits the Supreme Court, I don't think the government could really ignore it could they?
  - w1ntermute 16y ago
    As an example, let's look at the warrantless wiretapping that AT&T did on the behest of the NSA[0]. The EFF filed two cases in response that claimed it was a blatant violation of the 4th amendment: Jewel v. NSA[1] & Hepting v. AT&T[2], against the government & AT&T, respectively. Here's the latest news on Jewel v. NSA: > In April, the Obama administration moved to dismiss Jewel, claiming that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets,” and that they were immune from suit. According to the documents on the EFF site, they appealed the ruling, but there hasn't been anything posted about the results of that. How about the case against AT&T? > In June of 2009, a federal judge dismissed Hepting and dozens of other lawsuits against telecoms, ruling that the companies had immunity from liability under the controversial FISA Amendments Act (FISAAA), which was enacted in response to our court victories in Hepting. Signed by President Bush in 2008, the FISAAA allows the Attorney General to require the dismissal of the lawsuits over the telecoms' participation in the warrantless surveillance program if the government secretly certifies to the court that the surveillance did not occur, was legal, or was authorized by the president -- certification that was filed in September of 2008. EFF is planning to appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, primarily arguing that FISAAA is unconstitutional in granting to the president broad discretion to block the courts from considering the core constitutional privacy claims of millions of Americans. 0: https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying 1: https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel 2: https://www.eff.org/nsa/hepting https://www.eff.org/nsa/hepting
    - yread 16y ago
      Sad state of affairs indeed.
    - tibbon 16y ago
      I see how they could evoke state secrets for wiretapping and such, but there's no secret here except that they screwed up and seized something they shouldn't have. I don't know how this specifically would be as easy to dismiss, but lawyers and the government always can find new tricks I'm sure.
      - CWuestefeld 16y ago
        The "secrets" part doesn't even matter. The bottom line is that the government has sovereign immunity, and can only be sued when it allows itself to be sued.
    - metageek 16y ago
      >> In April, the Obama administration moved to dismiss Jewel, claiming that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets,” and that they were immune from suit. Hardly surprising, since he voted to immunize them while in the Senate.
    - burgerbrain 16y ago
      "When the [government] does it, that means it is not illegal!"
  - acabal 16y ago
    EDIT: Sorry, meant to reply to w1ntermute, not tibbon. The so-called "Constitution-Free Zone": the Constitution allows for warrantless searches at borders for the purposes of customs enforcement. But our government has conveniently decided that the "border" is now defined as any land within 100 miles of a physical border. Guess what? 2/3 of the American population lives within that definition of a border. Guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure died long ago. http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty...
snsr 16y ago
This is clearly an example unreasonable seizure, and it seems the DHS exists solely to perform unreasonable searches. This trend towards outright censorship is a worrying one. While I can't speak to the content of any of the sites in this round of censorship/seizure, the DHS certainly seems to be acting outside their mandate.
- tibbon 16y ago
  As a supporter (and someone who voted for) Obama, I'm frustrated by his lack of comment/participation on this subject. There's no way he can think this is constitutional.
  - pzxc 16y ago
    You can't be serious. Dear God, I hope you're not serious.
  - jokermatt999 16y ago
    Considering he chose Joe Biden as his vice president, you shouldn't be too shocked. I still think he was a better choice than McCain, but his reputation in these situations isn't why.
  - haploid 16y ago
    Is this a joke?
smokeyj 16y ago
Unreasonable search and seizure doesn't exist, take for example the patriot act which was just extended. The constitution and bill of rights is what they teach little kids, no one takes that junk seriously.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  The (sunsetting portions of the) PATRIOT Act were not just extended. The bill cleared the House, but hasn't yet gone through the Senate. There's still time to call your Senator and see if he gives a damn.
  - gergles 16y ago
    http://arabnews.com/world/article266832.ece http://arabnews.com/world/article266832.ece
patio11 16y ago
While there are more important things in life (like being accused wrongly of child pornography), I wonder how that effects their Google rankings to suddenly have your entire domain ripped out from underneath you and pointing to a duplicate content site. My educated guess based on experience working with people affected by dissimilar causes but similar appearance to Google: a massive hit to rankings/traffic within about 48 hours, and recovery to a fraction of normal several weeks later. I doubt that one can easily convince a judge that loss of Google rankings is a cognizable harm under tort law, but given that an agency of the US government just called you a child pornographer on your own property, if there isn't a sovereign immunity defense you will hardly need to justify what a high ranking on Google is worth to receive damages.
- dedward 16y ago
  The problem seems to be (for lack of better information) that sites are shut down pre-emptively with no warning. I'm all for prosecuting child pornographers, and shutting down their content as quickly as possible - but that should be possible by a court order against the hosting provider.... or if said provider is unreachable / out of jurisdiction, and has STILL had some reasonable attempt at contact to press charges, then sure, go after the domain - but there needs to be some due process behind things rather than just having the federal authorities and DNS layer just whomping things down with little to no oversight.
  - marshray 16y ago
    Well that's just the thing - if someone is unambiguously a child pornographer - throw their ass in jail! WTF are they doing screwing around with DNS registrations in cases where they know that is taking place? It sure seems to me like some adversarial government entity simply found a knob they can turn to screw with people when they don't actually have the standard of evidence required for a prosecution.
  - Bossman 16y ago
    > The problem seems to be (for lack of better information) that sites are shut down pre-emptively with no warning. Well, you can thank the Patriot Act for that. It allows them to go after people without telling them until it happens.
jimmyk 16y ago
Yes, there is recourse. IANAL, but as far as my understanding goes, the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances includes the right to sue the government, or at least to file a suit against the government in court.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  You can file suits until the cows come home. It doesn't matter because of "sovereign immunity" (see http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sovereign+Immunity http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sovereign+Immu... ). Basically, the government is immune from lawsuit unless it chooses to allow you to sue it. And this is the presupposition, so they don't need to justify it. You've got only two defenses against this: (1) The right to vote; and (2) the right to keep and bear arms.
  - jimmyk 16y ago
    Yes, I'm aware of sovereign immunity, but the government has waived it for certain circumstances through the Federal Tort Claims Act. Since I'm not a lawyer, I'm nowhere near qualified to say whether or not this would be included in that exception, but it seems plausible to me that it might be. The act of the government seems to be non-intentional (I can't read the article due to a corp firewall, but it says "By Mistake" in the title) and it was committed by a person acting on behalf of the USG. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Tort_Claims_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Tort_Claims_Act
  - jdp23 16y ago
    Here's an example of a class action suit against the government that led to a settlement: http://www.mainjustice.com/2009/12/08/government-settles-indian-trust-fund-class-action-suit/ http://www.mainjustice.com/2009/12/08/government-settles-ind...
  - aharrison 16y ago
    Soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use your boxes, and please please please use them in that order.

by tibbon 16y ago

w1ntermute 16y ago

> Seems that this would trigger unreasonable search and seizure. Oh, I think that boundary was crossed a long time ago. It's more a problem of the US government not giving two fucks about its own Constitution.

tibbon 16y ago
I don't know the entire process well, but wouldn't that be something that you'd presumably file in Federal District court and start there? Once/if it hits the Supreme Court, I don't think the government could really ignore it could they?
- w1ntermute 16y ago
  As an example, let's look at the warrantless wiretapping that AT&T did on the behest of the NSA[0]. The EFF filed two cases in response that claimed it was a blatant violation of the 4th amendment: Jewel v. NSA[1] & Hepting v. AT&T[2], against the government & AT&T, respectively. Here's the latest news on Jewel v. NSA: > In April, the Obama administration moved to dismiss Jewel, claiming that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets,” and that they were immune from suit. According to the documents on the EFF site, they appealed the ruling, but there hasn't been anything posted about the results of that. How about the case against AT&T? > In June of 2009, a federal judge dismissed Hepting and dozens of other lawsuits against telecoms, ruling that the companies had immunity from liability under the controversial FISA Amendments Act (FISAAA), which was enacted in response to our court victories in Hepting. Signed by President Bush in 2008, the FISAAA allows the Attorney General to require the dismissal of the lawsuits over the telecoms' participation in the warrantless surveillance program if the government secretly certifies to the court that the surveillance did not occur, was legal, or was authorized by the president -- certification that was filed in September of 2008. EFF is planning to appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, primarily arguing that FISAAA is unconstitutional in granting to the president broad discretion to block the courts from considering the core constitutional privacy claims of millions of Americans. 0: https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying 1: https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel 2: https://www.eff.org/nsa/hepting https://www.eff.org/nsa/hepting
  - yread 16y ago
    Sad state of affairs indeed.
  - tibbon 16y ago
    I see how they could evoke state secrets for wiretapping and such, but there's no secret here except that they screwed up and seized something they shouldn't have. I don't know how this specifically would be as easy to dismiss, but lawyers and the government always can find new tricks I'm sure.
    - CWuestefeld 16y ago
      The "secrets" part doesn't even matter. The bottom line is that the government has sovereign immunity, and can only be sued when it allows itself to be sued.
  - metageek 16y ago
    >> In April, the Obama administration moved to dismiss Jewel, claiming that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets,” and that they were immune from suit. Hardly surprising, since he voted to immunize them while in the Senate.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    "When the [government] does it, that means it is not illegal!"
- acabal 16y ago
  EDIT: Sorry, meant to reply to w1ntermute, not tibbon. The so-called "Constitution-Free Zone": the Constitution allows for warrantless searches at borders for the purposes of customs enforcement. But our government has conveniently decided that the "border" is now defined as any land within 100 miles of a physical border. Guess what? 2/3 of the American population lives within that definition of a border. Guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure died long ago. http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty...

snsr 16y ago

This is clearly an example unreasonable seizure, and it seems the DHS exists solely to perform unreasonable searches. This trend towards outright censorship is a worrying one. While I can't speak to the content of any of the sites in this round of censorship/seizure, the DHS certainly seems to be acting outside their mandate.

tibbon 16y ago
As a supporter (and someone who voted for) Obama, I'm frustrated by his lack of comment/participation on this subject. There's no way he can think this is constitutional.
- pzxc 16y ago
  You can't be serious. Dear God, I hope you're not serious.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  Considering he chose Joe Biden as his vice president, you shouldn't be too shocked. I still think he was a better choice than McCain, but his reputation in these situations isn't why.
- haploid 16y ago
  Is this a joke?

smokeyj 16y ago

Unreasonable search and seizure doesn't exist, take for example the patriot act which was just extended. The constitution and bill of rights is what they teach little kids, no one takes that junk seriously.

CWuestefeld 16y ago
The (sunsetting portions of the) PATRIOT Act were not just extended. The bill cleared the House, but hasn't yet gone through the Senate. There's still time to call your Senator and see if he gives a damn.
- gergles 16y ago
  http://arabnews.com/world/article266832.ece http://arabnews.com/world/article266832.ece

patio11 16y ago

While there are more important things in life (like being accused wrongly of child pornography), I wonder how that effects their Google rankings to suddenly have your entire domain ripped out from underneath you and pointing to a duplicate content site. My educated guess based on experience working with people affected by dissimilar causes but similar appearance to Google: a massive hit to rankings/traffic within about 48 hours, and recovery to a fraction of normal several weeks later. I doubt that one can easily convince a judge that loss of Google rankings is a cognizable harm under tort law, but given that an agency of the US government just called you a child pornographer on your own property, if there isn't a sovereign immunity defense you will hardly need to justify what a high ranking on Google is worth to receive damages.

dedward 16y ago
The problem seems to be (for lack of better information) that sites are shut down pre-emptively with no warning. I'm all for prosecuting child pornographers, and shutting down their content as quickly as possible - but that should be possible by a court order against the hosting provider.... or if said provider is unreachable / out of jurisdiction, and has STILL had some reasonable attempt at contact to press charges, then sure, go after the domain - but there needs to be some due process behind things rather than just having the federal authorities and DNS layer just whomping things down with little to no oversight.
- marshray 16y ago
  Well that's just the thing - if someone is unambiguously a child pornographer - throw their ass in jail! WTF are they doing screwing around with DNS registrations in cases where they know that is taking place? It sure seems to me like some adversarial government entity simply found a knob they can turn to screw with people when they don't actually have the standard of evidence required for a prosecution.
- Bossman 16y ago
  > The problem seems to be (for lack of better information) that sites are shut down pre-emptively with no warning. Well, you can thank the Patriot Act for that. It allows them to go after people without telling them until it happens.

jimmyk 16y ago

Yes, there is recourse. IANAL, but as far as my understanding goes, the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances includes the right to sue the government, or at least to file a suit against the government in court.

CWuestefeld 16y ago
You can file suits until the cows come home. It doesn't matter because of "sovereign immunity" (see http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sovereign+Immunity http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sovereign+Immu... ). Basically, the government is immune from lawsuit unless it chooses to allow you to sue it. And this is the presupposition, so they don't need to justify it. You've got only two defenses against this: (1) The right to vote; and (2) the right to keep and bear arms.
- jimmyk 16y ago
  Yes, I'm aware of sovereign immunity, but the government has waived it for certain circumstances through the Federal Tort Claims Act. Since I'm not a lawyer, I'm nowhere near qualified to say whether or not this would be included in that exception, but it seems plausible to me that it might be. The act of the government seems to be non-intentional (I can't read the article due to a corp firewall, but it says "By Mistake" in the title) and it was committed by a person acting on behalf of the USG. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Tort_Claims_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Tort_Claims_Act
- jdp23 16y ago
  Here's an example of a class action suit against the government that led to a settlement: http://www.mainjustice.com/2009/12/08/government-settles-indian-trust-fund-class-action-suit/ http://www.mainjustice.com/2009/12/08/government-settles-ind...
- aharrison 16y ago
  Soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use your boxes, and please please please use them in that order.