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I find this extremely alarming. I don't engage in piracy or serve files or anything like that. But I consider domain names to be a form of property, and to see
by nirvana 15y ago
I find this extremely alarming. I don't engage in piracy or serve files or anything like that. But I consider domain names to be a form of property, and to see the US government taking property without giving he owners recourse is extremely troubling.
The US system is founded in innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The requirements for this proof have been laid out and refined over 200 years. I think those requirements are not strict enough, but these seizures don't even include an actual trial, and thus deny the victims the right to defend their position, or make their case before a judge.
Earlier this year I heard about a hip-hop blog that was seized which engaged in no piracy... though it did offer songs that the record companies had given him as a form of promotion.
So, not only is this being done without due process, but it is being done incompetently to boot!
I have zero expectation that this won't become-- like the "drug war" and the "war on terrorism" -- an ever widening net to where it effectively becomes seizure of politically-incorrect domains (e.g.: write a post critical of the government on your blog? have no blog the next day...)
This is literally a form of government censorship of speech. Even if some speech is "illegal" (I don't think even pirate spreading domains are illegal, though there is a good civil case against them) the act of speaking is protected, and this right is acknowledged by the first amendment.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoIndeed. Where's the due process? Where's the right to a trial? The right to face ones accusers and see the evidence presented?
- wmf 15y agoYou can sue to get your domain back, but that doesn't seem like a fair process.
- adestefan 15y agoThey're seized pursuant to a warrant issued by a Federal court. The owner is more than welcome to challenge the warrant, but why would you? A DNS name is cheap and challenging a Federal warrant is not.
- bigiain 15y agoAnd this is the problem, the whole "we're the government, we'll do what we like, legal or not, and make the process of challenging it _technically_ possible, but practically unusable for regular people due to the cost." This is to me, very similar the whole #OWS movement's complaint - justice for all _who can afford it_... Where do I sign up to the "Occupy the Root Nameservers Movement"?
- adestefan 15y ago> This is literally a form of government censorship of speech. Even if some speech is "illegal" (I don't think even pirate spreading domains are illegal, though there is a good civil case against them) the act of speaking is protected, and this right is acknowledged by the first amendment. No it's not. It's analogous to the police acting on a warrant to close a store front selling counterfeit goods. This is something that occurs constantly in large cities all over the country. If a judge would ever issue a warrant to remove a DNS name based upon speech, and it's upheld, we have bigger problems than seizing DNS names.
- 18pfsmt 15y agoI'm not sure what a "DNS name" is exactly. DNS stands for Domain Name Service, and I can't figure out for the life of me what it is you are referring to. The burden of proof for these seizures was far less than a judge-issued warrant, which is the problem with which most of _us_ are concerned. Slowly eroding constitutionally protected rights reminds me of the boiling frog that never jumps out of the pot as the temperature is raised ever-so-slightly.
- pantaloons 15y agoI think he meant DNS zone.
- GHFigs 15y agoThe burden of proof for these seizures was far less than a judge-issued warrant Meaning what, exactly?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- wavephorm 15y agoIt's analogous to the police acting on a warrant to close a store front selling counterfeit goods There is no warrant. This is not a civilian police force acting legally. This is an arm of the federal government acting unilaterally implementing authoritarian control over public communications and information. I'm amazed that Americans are comfortable with their leaders going down this road. It's been done before and has rarely ended well.