FYI-News
News that falls under local media's radar
This is a troubling story. First a bill in congress, you know the representative arm of government, is going through both houses. It is called Combatting Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act or COICA. COICA is a much debated bill, that continues to be vetted by both sides. And there are two sides to this debate, and in many situations file sharing is perfectly legal, and some where it is not.
The first problem here is seizure. Anytime government seizes anything, to most, a red flag goes up. There is no statutory basis for this action, absolutely none! The judicial justification is only "a United States District Court". Not a specific court, just a general catch all term. "A spokeswoman for ICE confirmed the seizures in the following statement. “ICE office of Homeland Security Investigations executed court-ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names. As this is an ongoing investigation, there are no additional details available at this time.” Let's review, an unnamed District Court, and an ongoing investigation. Seizure without due process is a VERY dangerous thing. Eminent domain, is still being debated fervently, and for the most part is acknowledged to be for the public good.
With no public debate, and no statutory basis, ICE/Homeland Security now feel it is their duty to seize web domains. “My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!” the exasperated owner of Torrent-Finder told TorrentFreak this morning.
The second problem has to do with Ice/Homeland Security. Both agencies have bemoaned the fact that they are under staffed. There is a problem of priorities here. What is more important for ICE to do in most Americans minds, a bit torrent site, or criminal illegals and militant Muslims crossing our border? I think the answer is rather obvious to most of us. With admitted finite resources, and under staffing, there begs the question of the intelligence of choosing to shift resources to seize websites, instead of finding and prosecuting dangerous criminals crossing our border daily. And remember, the bit torrent site may not be illegal, the illegal aliens are!
I would also think that Homeland Security would have better decision making in prioritizing their work. In most Americans minds we would rather have a radical religious site spewing venom, that impacted life or death for Americans taken down, than wasting finite resources on a hip-hop torrent site. Then again Homeland Security seems to be totally impotent on handling the WIKIleaks problem. Here is a website that DIRECTLY impacts American military and State Department lives, literally life and death. What have Homeland Security done here? They claim no authority, but now they have crossed that line, not to stop WIKIleaks, but to stop a few hip-hop songs. Terrible waste of precious resources.
There are many facets of this story that do not seem right. The US was highly embarrassed in 2006 when Thomas Bodström, the then Justice Minister of Sweden was investigated for four different crimes, including no authority to act on shutting down The Pirate Bay's servers, there was no statutory authority. The US was implicated for acting on behalf of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). Perhaps the US government did not learn it's lesson in 2006, and still takes it's marching orders from MPAA, and not the people of the United States.
For more info:
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/130763-homeland-security-dept-seizes-domain-names-
www.torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent-search-engine-domain-and-more-101126/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html?_r=3&ref=technology
New Information 11/28/2010- See this article, site not shut down, only rerouted, click link below
http://rulingclass.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/the-background-dope-on-dhs-recent-seizure-of-domains/
The first problem here is seizure. Anytime government seizes anything, to most, a red flag goes up. There is no statutory basis for this action, absolutely none! The judicial justification is only "a United States District Court". Not a specific court, just a general catch all term. "A spokeswoman for ICE confirmed the seizures in the following statement. “ICE office of Homeland Security Investigations executed court-ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names. As this is an ongoing investigation, there are no additional details available at this time.” Let's review, an unnamed District Court, and an ongoing investigation. Seizure without due process is a VERY dangerous thing. Eminent domain, is still being debated fervently, and for the most part is acknowledged to be for the public good.
With no public debate, and no statutory basis, ICE/Homeland Security now feel it is their duty to seize web domains. “My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!” the exasperated owner of Torrent-Finder told TorrentFreak this morning.
The second problem has to do with Ice/Homeland Security. Both agencies have bemoaned the fact that they are under staffed. There is a problem of priorities here. What is more important for ICE to do in most Americans minds, a bit torrent site, or criminal illegals and militant Muslims crossing our border? I think the answer is rather obvious to most of us. With admitted finite resources, and under staffing, there begs the question of the intelligence of choosing to shift resources to seize websites, instead of finding and prosecuting dangerous criminals crossing our border daily. And remember, the bit torrent site may not be illegal, the illegal aliens are!
I would also think that Homeland Security would have better decision making in prioritizing their work. In most Americans minds we would rather have a radical religious site spewing venom, that impacted life or death for Americans taken down, than wasting finite resources on a hip-hop torrent site. Then again Homeland Security seems to be totally impotent on handling the WIKIleaks problem. Here is a website that DIRECTLY impacts American military and State Department lives, literally life and death. What have Homeland Security done here? They claim no authority, but now they have crossed that line, not to stop WIKIleaks, but to stop a few hip-hop songs. Terrible waste of precious resources.
There are many facets of this story that do not seem right. The US was highly embarrassed in 2006 when Thomas Bodström, the then Justice Minister of Sweden was investigated for four different crimes, including no authority to act on shutting down The Pirate Bay's servers, there was no statutory authority. The US was implicated for acting on behalf of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). Perhaps the US government did not learn it's lesson in 2006, and still takes it's marching orders from MPAA, and not the people of the United States.
For more info:
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/130763-homeland-security-dept-seizes-domain-names-
www.torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent-search-engine-domain-and-more-101126/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html?_r=3&ref=technology
New Information 11/28/2010- See this article, site not shut down, only rerouted, click link below
http://rulingclass.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/the-background-dope-on-dhs-recent-seizure-of-domains/
