How Italian Police Shut Down U.S. Web Servers

gessel writes: "CNN has an article describing Italian police shutting down a U.S. hosted website deemed in Italy to be illegally blasphemous. The article goes on to describe the ramifications and U.S. efforts along the same lines."

Comments

Re:Not really a law issue.

[bwt]

Looks like some Italian cops found someones password and shut things down. It's not like they forced the U.S. based ISP's to pull the content.

Is this not a crime under US law? After all, unauthorized access was used to alter the site's contents.

Re:... and?

[inkswamp]

I bet if you were to ask an American they would say

[...blah blah...]

I love how non-Americans can get away with starting sentences like this about Americans and effectively generalize about 250+ million people, and yet if an American says something like that about Europeans or any other group we're accused of being ill-informed Ameri-centric assholes.

Curious and annoying double-standard.

We need to respect other countries extridition law

[t0qer]

Blue Gravity's chief executive, Tom Krwawecz, said the company was never informed. And he believes U.S. laws -- not Italy's -- ought to apply.

I don't think so...

We do not have the right to interfere with the laws of other countries (unless it is flat out human rights violatations and the enslaved are being used to build a war machine against us) Being that the USA is a melting pot, we have been taught to respect the belief's and values of other cultures.

The content was created in italy, by an italian. Being Italian myself, the story sort of took a special note with me.

Let's say someone in the US was creating kiddie porn sites and hosting them offshore. Most states in the US make it illeagle to have nudes of anyone under 18. The laws in other countries differ, you can marry as young as 14 and still be legal. Should we exempt someone dealing in kiddie porn just because their site is offshore? No! Of course not.

So if that is the logic applied here, then why in gods name would we want to impose a double standard to our allied nations laws? It doesn't bode well with "keeping the peace"

my .02 cents anyways.

Re:... and?

[jtdubs]

But true in a lot of cases.

American's are, in general, Ameri-centric assholes.

I should know. I live here. I have since birth.

We believe atleast as strongly, if not more strongly than most nations, that our ways are the correct ones and we have the right to make others live by those same beliefs. Whatever we want is good. Whatever opposes us is bad.

Unfortunately, we also have the muscle to back up these stupid claims.

Justin Dubs

Re:... and?

[_Sprocket_]

If it's an American company making content in American and hosting it in France for a French audience, most slashdotters seem to feel that American laws should apply.

I'm guessing you are referring to the Yahoo case here. I might misunderstand the issue - but the way I remember it, the French government wanted Nazi items removed from Yahoo's US sites. The French claimed jurisdiction since Yahoo has a French site and has offices in France. The kicker is that the content in question was specific to Yahoo's US servers and, arguably, US audience and were not illegal in the US. In summery - an American company with American content on American servers for an American audience. And French legal action.

Or consider another case. If an American company make an online gambling website, markets it to Americans, but hosts it in the Cayman Islands, whose laws should apply?

Now THIS is an excellent point. The idealistic freedom of the Internet runs in to one ugly physical world fact - possession is 9/10s of the law. Content is only as free as the laws of the country where its server is located allow it to be - assuming it doesn't begin to play whack-a-mole and jump around locations. This is why data havens are so intriguing (and why Sealand gets casinos as a major customer). And it highlights just why governments get so bent out of shape over the Internet. Its hard to control what you can't put your hands on.

The answer to world government problems, of course, is the ability to get a friendly government to lend you a hand in nabbing that annoying server. And this is where the real problems of jurisdiction, laws, and citizen rights begin.

Re:Not really a law issue.

[Wavicle]

hatespeech against the Blessed Mother

Blessed Mother by whose opinion? Oh, that's right, by the opinion of your religion. What if other religions disagree? Oop, how dare they consider freedom of religious expression! There is only One True Church, right?

one does not have the right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater,

No, but you can write about yelling fire in a crowded theater all you want.

and you can make the case that this is exactly what the Web site was doing, from a theological point of view.

How does this put a group of people in a confined space in immediate peril of life and limb?

Damned AC's. I should know better than to reply to them.