Slashdot Mirror
UK Police To Get Major New Powers To Seize Domains
Stoobalou writes "British Police forces could soon have the power to seize any domain associated with criminal activity, under new proposals published today by UK domain registrar Nominet. At present, Nominet has no clear legal obligation to ensure that .uk domains are not used for criminal activities. That situation may soon change, if proposals from the Serious and Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) are accepted."
Two weeks ago, Fitwatch, a site dedicated to campaigning against what it sees as heavy-handed practices by police surveillance units, was taken down by its UK-based web hosting company,
With its domain name suspended, the only way for visitors to find a rogue site would be to type in its lengthy (and decidedly less memorable) numeric IP address.
This shows how well prepared is the british police to deal with matters regarding the internet: I reckon they never heard of the hosts file or, for an URL only, favorites.
Such simple minds... life for them must be a permanent bliss.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
-- boggle! Of course there must be an appeals process.
The UK is becoming worse, there is a proposal by the home secretary to throw someone out of his house even if there was not enough evidence to charge; this is going to be abused by wifes who want a divorce -- get the bloke out on made up complaints of violence; by the time that he would be allowed back in she will have started the legal process and grabbed the property and stopped him seeing the kids.
Dear Police,
Please be informed that not just one but multiple criminals use the domains Hotmail.co.uk and yahoo.co.uk. Please disable these immediately to prevent further crimes from occurring. (and they annoy the hell out of me).
What do you want to bet that serious and well-planned out crimes won't include:
Goldman Sachs UK (where to start)
Paypal UK (seizure of users' money without refund)
Microsoft UK (organized monopoly abuse)
Intel UK (organized monopoly abuse)
and anyone else who's a paymaster?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I wouldn't necessarily call it free under those terms. If I can get in trouble for merely saying something, I don't think it's really free speech. Freer speech than in some areas, but not necessarily free at it's foundation.
There's nothing wrong with the police asking. It's the host's fault for caving in without a court order.
It's just like there's nothing wrong with police asking if they can look inside your house without a warrant. you just say no and they have to go get a warrant if they have good reason to need to search your house (unless of course there's evidence of a crime in progress)