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Domains Blocked By US Treasury 'Blacklist'
yuna49 writes "Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports today about the plight of a Spanish tour operator whose domain names have been embargoed by his domain name registrar (eNom). They pulled his domains after they discovered the tour operator's name on a US Treasury blacklist. It turns out he packages tours to Cuba largely for European tourists who can legally travel there, unlike Americans. The article cites 'a press release issued in December 2004, almost three years before eNom acted. It said Mr. Marshall's company had helped Americans evade restrictions on travel to Cuba and was "a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people." It added that American companies must not only stop doing business with the company but also freeze its assets, meaning that eNom did exactly what it was legally required to do.' The only part of the operator's business in the United States is his domain name registration; all other aspects of his business lie outside the United States."
... are breaking the law if they go there?
*gets out his eraser and starts removing that "Land Of The Free" line from all the songbooks...*
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
How many here would decry the Chinese and assorted third world countries for censorship of the internet, and yet, here we (in the US) act no differently. It makes me wonder how many things we just don't see, because the DNS entry doesn't even show up.
Are we truly free? Or is that just an illusion?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
They are mostly free too because no one has bought them. But perhaps useful in this case,
My little Linux and tech blog
...to the EU's argument that censorship restricts free trade. This looks to be a fairly clear example where censorship caused direct economic difficulties.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
But, this travel company has learned another lesson: Don't buy domains from eNom, they suck in so many ways....
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
You mean things like providing a never ending stream of very real examples of how America wants to meddle in internal Cuban affairs, thereby providing an instant excuse to play the nationalist "they want to topple your government from Washington! Ignore the abuses you know about and rally together as a nation to resist them as a people!" card?
I mean, this has me chilled to the bone. Ignoring the ridiculousness that in a "free" country we have "travel restrictions", the fact that they can legally perform such blocking with little or no recourse alone has me shaking.
I fear we are too trustworthy in the robustness of the internet and I'm even more afraid of the day if the powers at large decide the bring the hammer down. I don't think net neutrality legislation would be effective against a determined oppressor, it only takes a few dragging anchors for them to tear through a few laws.
All those who happily denounce the (despicable) proposed actions of Iran in censoring the 'net during their elections take note- The world takes its lead from the US, and the US is not currently living up to this responsibility (though many of its citizens kick ass in many ways).
Please Americans, I love lots of what you stand for, now kill off the right-wing cancer that eats at your nation's heart.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Just go with a non-american ISP/domain name reistrar. It's not as if the US rules the planet, there are plenty of ways to continue working without their say-so or approval. Just move to a free locationa and continue with your legitimate business.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
No issues then, any european who trades with an american firm is asking for problems.
It sounds as thought the great firewall of America will be installed sooner or later. Apparently all it would take is a judge and software that has already been developed, tested, and deployed by American companies in China. Not that it's anything new... we've been censoring the internet for more than a decade now in the name of copyright with the 1997 NET Act. It appears the nationalist crowd has modded you flamebait early... maybe some sane meta-mods will take care of that.
You can't take the sky from me...
Undoubtably I'll be modded down to flamebait, but as a non-US citizen I get pretty tired of the US trying to be the 'policeman of the world' and at the same time pull these underhanded tricks.
Another example I came upon today is how the White House was planning to overthrow the democratically chosen Hamas party, because it didn't stroke with their plans.
What happened with "With great power comes great responsibility"? The US is just acting as the schoolyard bully.
Note that I understand that "The US" != "all US citizens", but please, you're the only ones that can do something about this. So please do so.
We can trade out the ass with Red China, and cozy up to Uzbekistan, but Cuba, no es posible. Why? Because Cubans who fled Cuba after the revolution because they wanted their comfort and money more than they wanted to stay and fight, now control a lot more political power in America than they should. We can ask if Cuba really has it that bad. Its major export is educated people. Doctors, mostly. Can we acknowledge that maybe individual greed doesn't steer everything in the right direction all the time? Sure Cuba has poor folks. Do we care about poor folks in Cuba more than we care about the Americans that were left stranded in New Orleans after Katrina for political reasons? Not this year. The US has more people in prison than any other country in the world. Yes, and that is not by percentage. Cut the bullshit, we need to get over our sense of exceptionalism.
1. Don't have anything to do with the USA.
Non-Americans already have to do ridiculous things like obtain visas to just to make a flight connection in the US. Soon we're not even allowed to overfly the US. That's fun if, like me, you live in Canada.
To hell with them.
you had me at #!
... do you realize that these restrictions have been in place since 1962 because the Cuban government expropriated the property of U.S. citizens and corporations in Cuba?
Do you also realize that it was made law in 1992 under the title of Cuban Democracy Act by U.S. Congressman Robert Torricelli (D)?
Once again, those who seem historically ignorant are quick to condemn the current administration for something that has (arguably) been in place for over 40 years...
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
...a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its peopleWell what about the billions in military aid given to Saudi Arabia, one of the most oppressive regimes in the world?. Cuba is Disney Land compared to Saudi Arabia. What about all that money going towards oppressing the Saudi people? Imagine some big democracy movement started in Saudi Arabia and tried to overthrow the dictatorship. The Saudi government would no doubt use all the weapons we have been selling them against their own people.
US policy toward Cuba is not about the dictatorship. The US has supported and created many dictatorships in that part of the world. The US policy towards Cuba is based on anger over losing control of the country. It's like Britain banning citizens from travelling to the US because the US had the cheek to declare independence.
The fact there is a US base in an 'enemy' country is a little clue as to how Cuba has been treated in the past. Don't expect the mainstream media to talk about it though. The US occupied Cuba after independence from Spain and refused to leave unless the Cubans agreed to a list of items (the Platt Amendment). Among that rather imperialistic list of requirements was a permanent military base at Guantanamo bay.
Of course if Castro had been a business friendly right-wing dictator, it could have been a smooth transition from Batista's rule. You wouldn't be hearing the US making big noises about the lack of democracy at all.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=389&year=2007 USA 16th
But do you really expect people to think freely if they've been spouting the pledge of allegence since they were 5?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Hopefully, today, Obama will win the Dem's vote. But to be honest, I do not think that McCain or even Clinton will be that bad. None of them are neo-cons. The odd thing is that all talk about our diminished reputation in the world while also speaking about our deficits. All 3 have experience beyond our shores. I think that all 3 will work to rebuild our relationships while solving some major issues (in particular, china).
The interesting issue is all 3's money handling. I noted that after Super Tuesday, McCain and Clinton had run out of money and really had no plans in place. OTH, Obama had a great deal less money than either of these, and he was not only not out of money, but had a plan for afterwards. It says a lot about the man vs. the other 2.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Prisons? Aren't those a French invention?
I thought we were calling them "Freedom Houses" now.
The enemies of Democracy are
Enom are the people who took over registerfly's expired domains (expired because you had no means renewing them), and then tried to get a $200 extortion fee for your domain to give it back to you.
So what do you expect from companies like that? I would personally open an international lawsuit against them, and there is absolutely no way Enom can win that.
This problem, like many others, can be fixed by one simple thing. FORCING OUR DAMN GOVERNMENT TO ABIDE BY THE CONSTITUTION.
Our Constitution is quite possibly the greatest piece of law ever written in the history of mankind. Unfortunately, the politicians (both democrats and republicans) have decided it can be ignored at will. We need to change this. We need to force every aspect of the government to operate under the full strength of our Constitution.
No more seizing property without due process.
No more stifling free speech just because it might offend somebody.
No more wiretaps of citizens and legal residents to fight terrorists without a court order signed by a REAL judge.
No more government agencies that aren't sanctioned by the Constitution (list to long to put here).
I am sicked by any politician who doesn't consider the Constitution the most sacred document in existence. Which means I'm sicked by ALL politicians.
-- Will program for bandwidth
It's almost like we're kind of pissed at the Castro family for encouraging the Soviet Union to launch those nuclear missiles he had on his island.
Yes, its almost like we're immature children who spitefully cling to their hatred long after the conflict is over and everyone else has grown up and gotten over it.
Hell, we've even made peace with the country that actually designed, built, and deployed the missles to cuba. You know, the country that actually owned them and put them their with the express purpose of creating a threat? The country that the 'cold war' was actually with? We made peace with them. But apparently our rage for a dying old man whose island they were on... for him... our hatred is boundless.
Grow up aready.
Yes, -1 Not conforming with majority opinion
No. -1 for being an immature and childish country.
You know, because of that whole trying to murder tens of millions of us and all.
You might want to check your history. The Soviets put missiles in Cuba in response to the fact that the USA put missiles in Turkey. Not that it stops their of course, the cold war was a series of moves and responses, but the point remains... Castro was a PAWN in a much bigger game of chess [er... global thermonuclear war] and his role and personal relevance was laughably minor.
In light of this and the wikileaks thing, I think it's interesting that the best we can do to censor foreign websites, is mess with their DNS registrar. Long term, that is just not going to be a viable tactic. It's like wack-a-mole, except that after the first mole, the remaining moles are out of reach.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Slashdot stories about Godaddy:
GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage
GoDaddy Caves To Irish Legal Threat
MySpace and GoDaddy Shut Down Security Site
GoDaddy Serves Blank Pages to Safari & Opera
GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover?
GoDaddy.com Dumps Linux for Microsoft
Go Daddy Usurps Network Solutions
Alternative Registrars to GoDaddy?
One Slashdot reader's experience: What needs to change. Quote: "... the catch was that it'd cost $80, as opposed to the $10 it normally costs."
I highly doubt we are speaking about mass internet outages. Likely, the blockages will affect vocal civil rights organizations (ACLU-types), hated minorities (Arabs, Muslims, etc.) and others disliked by the current ruling party. Doubt me? My management consulting career essentially ended as 1hr flights started taking upwards of 3hours just to print boarding passes. You cant fly from city to city if you are spend 3hours trying to print your boarding pass (in the worst case, it was 5hours + 12hours waiting for the next flight.) Laptops are confiscated never to be returned. The careers of dozens of law abiding minorities suddenly ended in 2003 and 2004 as these policies were instated. But being a white, you wouldn't know anything has changed. I'm sure it will be the same thing with websites.
I use gandi.net. They're fairly cheap ($15/yr), been around a good while (since 2000), not located in the US (France), and (most importantly), their agreement specifically notes that ownership of the domain is yours, not theirs. Their website is good and handles all the normal stuff you might need to do with a domain. I can't speak to their support, as I have not had instance to make us of it.
IANAL, but the operator may be able to sue for damages in the EU.[1][2] [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms-Burton_Act [2]http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31996R2271:EN:HTML
to all of the americans here trashing their own government:
if you as a cuban tried this in cuba, it is in the law of the land to arrest and jail you
if you doubt that, i'm not going to be your google monkey: go to the massively neocon sources of amnesty international and human rights watch and tell me what they say about the law in cuba about saying bad things about the government
so please, by all means, bash the us government: it's your right, you are respected as an american to bash your own government. just try to understand exactly what the real enemy is here. some people have a colossal lack of scale and perspective
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I agree that, for the sake of clarity, the .com/.org/etc TLDs should be reserved to "international" organizations (whatever that can possibly mean in legal terms), and all American domains should have been placed into .us. But that's not going to happen simply because no one would go through the hassle of converting all the existing American domains over to .us and forcing everyone to update their bookmarks and finger memory.
(And now witness a horde of American slashdotters coming along proclaiming the supremacy of the US over the Internet ("because we invented it!"), and in particular their inalienable right to shorter domain names ;)
Score: i, Imaginary
The ability to own other people.
The lack of universal suffrage.
The electoral college and variegated citizenship.
The concept of equality and fairness.
It is folly to assume a document written in the 1700's would be a very good fit for the 2000's.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
So what exactly is the difference between Cuba and China? Oh, that's right! China makes cheap shit for Walmart. And they support American corporations, which is what you right-wing loonies really mean when you talk about "spreading democracy." That is, spreading corporate influence around the globe. That's Cuba's real crime. They won't let the American corporations back in. Does anybody not understand this?
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
This may be somewhat OT, but eNom are known well in the anti-spam community for being one of the largest registar choices of spammers. They are almost 100% likely to do nothing to discourage spammers from using them as a spammer-safe haven for registrations.
This is further supported by taking a glance at data from the URIBL "Realtime URI" feed for Abused/Abusive Registrars. A glance at their website shows they rank second out of 250 registrars for hosting blacklisted domains.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
They turn a country, a nation into a military camp. What liberties, what democratic process can be in a military camp?
For example they put the embargo for Zimbabwe and then cry bitterly over the hunger there. They criticize the lack of new democratic ideas in Cuba and at the same time restrict travel of people who could bring and exchange these ideas.
Why they still do it? Look into a history for an answer. 1953. The leader of Iran, Mossadek, dared to demand from British Petroleum part of the oil revenue - 50%. Looks like a fair deal. But he was chased out for this and replaced by a puppet shah. By the way that is the real reason of the Islamic fundamentalism of today.
It is not a democracy they are interested in Cuba. They want somehow to overthrow the government and get hold of its country resources, to receive them for free.
They use for these the systematic approach. Institutions, agencies, think tanks of thousands and thousands specialists in political technologies are busy day and night, analyzing situation, studying local politicians, suggesting actions which could be taken to destabilize the situation, to prevent any improvements in the target country, to prevent the democratic process.
There are departments for every country which has got any resources worth taking: Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Iraq, etc. They just use the words "democracy", "freedom" to disguise the real targets - getting an unrestricted access to resources. This tactic was invented by Napoleon who used the ideals of French revolution as a propaganda disguise to conquer the world.
In Iran, well, its illegal to even be jewish.
That is plainly false. Iran, for all its faults, legally recognises Jews and has the middle east's largest Jewish community outside of Israel. Some 25000 Jews live there. Iran, while being rabidly anti-Israel, makes a distinction between Jews and Zionism (not that that justifies their policies in any way)