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Canadian Domain Registry Pulls Plug on Free Speech
An anonymous reader writes "The staff of a Canadian political candidate bragged today that he had managed to shut down a website critical of his involvement in a fundraising scandal, by having the country's registrar of domains pull the DNS records for the site. Criticism from bloggers and free speech advocates has been negative, and is coming from across the political spectrum."
how he was able to accomplish this.
However, the article does imply that noone is willing to admit to setting up the site.
Maybe the site's operator didn't provide accurate information when registering it. If that is the grounds for deregistering it, then it's not quite the free speech issue it's made out to be.
Michael Geist's page (linked in the summary) contains this link to a mirror of the site that caused the furor: http://www.youthforvolpe.no-libs.com/p
from one of the blogs:
.ca domain name with anonymous details, the domain name can be removed under the CIRA's rules. However, one first needs to point it out (as Joe Volpe's campaign did).
.
UPDATE (supplemtary info): There's more information to the story. The deletion of the domain name was in full compliance of rules of the CIRA (just because it's a rule, doesn't make it right). Supposedly, if one registers a
This doesn't necessarily make it right, however. .
Whatever. Everyone assumed that it was a huge abuse of power, when in reality it was just someone using a tactic that anyone can use. Complaining that someone isn't following the rules, and following an established procedure to remedy the situation.
As usual, people get all up in arms, bloggers go nuts, emails and phone calls are made... and then we find out nothing really wrong was done.
The big public relations screw up was bragging about it on a mailing list. But otherwise, he didn't do anything that ANY political campaign wouldn't have done in the same situation.
Click here for the whole scoop and some mirrors:
.ca registrar after they emailed them demanding which part of the Registrant Agreement that they were in violation of. It turns out that it had nothing to do with anonymous registration:
UPDATE: I just got an email from the kids at youthforvolpe.ca. They received an email from their
From : CADNS.CA
Sent : June 1, 2006 8:41:26 PM
To : "Youthfor Volpe"
CC : archive@cadns.ca
Subject : RE: Domain registration for youthforvolpe.ca
Article 3.1
Paragraph (h) (i) and (ii)
(h) not engage in any direct or indirect activity which in CIRA's opinion is designed to bring, or may bring, the Registry into disrepute, is designed to interfere, or may interfere, with CIRA's operations or designed to expose, or may expose, CIRA to prosecution or to legal action by the Registrant or a third party including, but not limited to, any of the following kinds of activities:
(i) directly or indirectly, defaming or contributing to the defamation of any other Person,
(ii) unlawfully discriminating or contributing to the unlawful discrimination of any other Person; or
(iii) committing any other actionable wrong against any other Person including, without limitation, any other infringement of the Person's rights;
Yep, the reason given was because the registrar believed that the website somehow defamed Joe Volpe and the registrar believed that it might expose CIRA to a lawsuit.
This had nothing to do with a technicality of anonymous registration.
If you are a crooked politician, your critics are like hydra - cut one down and 1,000 spring up in their place.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The important question is... Will you come to the defense of Mike Hunt? Mike Hunt is clearly in need of help right now, and only the actions of truly altruistic individuals like yourself can make bare the facts of this obviously hairy situation.
Reports have it that some of Mike Hunt's other staff members - namely Mr.s Jack Mehoff and Holden McGroin - are organizing and mobilizing a grass-roots defense. I suspect they'll be tempted to use some dirty tactics, but this is clearly not the time to be hitting below the belt. We must hold ourselves to the highest standards and refuse to sink into the deep, dank, stinky chasm of corruption.
After all, that's what Mike Hunt would expect of us all.
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Agreed, this is completely untrue, the Globe and Mail likes to act like things are newsworthy, when they are not. See what Michael Geist has to say about this.
Volpe's acceptance of these contributions was widely mocked and derided. The website cited in this thread was launched, and got a fair bit of coverage online.
Mr. Volpe subsequently decided to return the donations given by these kids. At about the same time, the website above had its DNS record SUSPD for one of many reasons (the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, CIRA cited a different reason in a press release (failure to provide valid Canadian contact information, as required by CIRA rules for a ".ca" domain) than that apparently given to the domain registrant (disrepute).
The interesting questions I find are (1) how influential were Volpe's minions in getting this site quashed, given that he was a member of the former Liberal government and CIRA operates under the authority of the Canadian Governmental department Industry Canada, and (2) what due process rights does any (".ca") domain owner have, given the speed with which this process executed (especially in light of all the legal expertise which is present on CIRA's board of directors, apparently not even bothering to ask for any court order or proper investigation against this site).