DHS Seizes 75+ Domain Names

Many readers have sent in an update to yesterday's story about the Department of Homeland Security's seizure of torrent-finder.com, a domain they believe to be involved in online piracy. As it turns out, this was just one of dozens of websites that were targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "In announcing that operation, John T. Morton, the assistant secretary of ICE, and representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America called it a long-term effort against online piracy, and said that suspected criminals would be pursued anywhere in the world. 'American business is under assault from counterfeiters and pirates every day, seven days a week,' Mr. Morton said. 'Criminals are stealing American ideas and products and distributing them over the Internet.'" The TorrentFreak article we discussed yesterday has been updated with a list of the blocked sites.

Comments

One of Our Cancers

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty."

“the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons.”

Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk. We are seeing are the final nails in the Constitution's coffin. Their is no Constitutional justification for the seizing of these sites. It violates the core of the agreements made between the people and the Government. I really wish we could return to being a republic, where each state minds its own business but keep the Federal Government operating within the bounds of the Constitution. The people in Texas can have anarchy or whatever and the people in Massachussetes can have their pristine Government institutions. Those unhappy with their state are Constitutionally guaranteed the right to move.

I bet dollars to doughnuts that when net neutrality passes, buried deep in the legislation's text will be stronger measures than what we're seeing today.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[dwlovell]

The websites in these cases amount to a storefront to distribute fake goods or copyrighted materials. When this happens with physical storefronts, they get shut down. I don't really see how this is any different.

This isn't about free speech, no liberties were lost, this is about people breaking the law and reasonable steps are being taken to stop them. You shouldn't fear the government as a result of this. Take off your tinfoil hat.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Skal Tura]

What happened to innocent until proven quilty?

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act

Re:One of Our Cancers

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

By that argument, Google should be #1 on their list of domains to seize. However, the first amendment has been violated as it uses absolute terms: "Congress shall make no law...". The sites were linking to other sites that carried the questionable material. This is the same as when a journalist is given illegally obtained information and then prints it. The journalist is not breaking the law and did not conspire to break the law and thus cannot be held liable for the crime.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[salesgeek]

As with most crimes in progress, the law allows the police to take action to stop the crime and seize the evidence. The disposition of the evidence and means of committing the crime will be dealt with as part of whatever trial is coming.

In this case, it looks like a ICE took down a bunch of sellers of counterfeit goods and may have overreached on the torrent site. That said, we'll all soon learn what the relationship of torrent-finder.com is to the rest of the seized domains.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[boxo1]

Who determines that the websites in question are distributing copyrighted materials?

I don't call it due process when your property is seized by way of court order resulting from a hearing in which you weren't allowed to give your side of the story.

The owner of Torrent Finder found out about the action after the site was seized. (even though the site hosts no torrents and returns search results through embedded iframes) So the site is gone until he can convince the government to give it back.

Yeah, that's my America. Give the government the power to punish without so much as a public hearing. After all there's no chance THAT power will be abused.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Mysteray]

No, the police will show up and shut down physical stores for selling illegal things/things illegally. Perhaps they do need a judge to sign off on it, but presumably the DHS had its own paperwork in order.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Probably because they convinced a judge that sites like torrent-finder.com were being used almost exclusively by those deliberately breaking the law, which of course they could argue simply by observing the publicly available content those sites were advertising, while the major search engines are predominantly used by everyday people for legal activities and because of their automated nature may also be used by people looking for other purposes.

Fortunately, unlike a significant proportion of Slashdot posters, the average judge does understand the difference, can identify when a group of law-breakers is taking the piss, and will authorise the relevant authorities to do something about it where the law permits.

It's odd how the freeloaders are always quick to claim that IP is not real property, infringing copyright is not theft, they wouldn't have bought it anyway, etc., yet just because the authorities changed a few records in a DNS database after seeking a court order and acting with full judicial oversight, the sky is falling and it's some profound invasion of their fundamental human rights or something. Hypocrisy, meet Denial; Denial, this is Hypocrisy.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[emt377]

I certainly agree with the quote in theory, but I also feel that it has to be broken because of the nature of society. In my town, there were some pretty nasty red-light runners. I was almost hit several times. So when they came to take away part of my liberty by installing red light cameras, I wasn't so upset. It was a trade off that would make the world better.

Yes but red light runners don't just have their property seized. They can go to court and argue it wasn't them, demand to see evidence, and generally defend themselves. Your PD's traffic enforcement doesn't collect names and then go seize their cars because they were used in the commission of a crime. Even red light runners have a right to due process. I have no problem with red light cameras either - or law enforcement in general. I have a problem with just rampantly interfering in civil disputes. Illegal distribution and bootlegging denies the property owners income, but isn't theft since that denies use of tangible property. Unless you steal the sole manuscript it's a bit rich to call it theft; it's generally not something that requires active prevention since it doesn't deny the rightful owner use of it. Nor is it a matter of public safety - it's strictly a civil dispute over distribution rights and compensation.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[biryokumaru]

So if I made a perfect copy of a Prada purse, it would be legal for me to sell it for $2000? I don't think exactitude is the best standard to differentiate copyright infringement...

Re:One of Our Cancers

[borcharc]

A Domain name is personal property, a court order taking it from someone without notice of the opportunity to respond to a complaint violates the second principle of natural justice, Audi alteram partem, a important backbone to our legal system. The concept of Audi alteram partem is extremely sacred in common law and requires the other side at least the opportunity to be heard before any action is taken. This is reinforced by several portions of the US Constitution and endless relevant case law. Any action, in any common law court, requires notice to be given and a reasonable time to respond to the allegations prior to and decision made by a court. You cant take someone property in absentia without at least giving them reasonable notice. PERIOD.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Apparently a US court has issued a warrant permitting this action. Given that they are presumably far more qualified to interpret US law than I am as a non-lawyer from outside the US, perhaps you should take the matter up with them?

And the cognitive dissonance is not in sticking meticulously to the distinction between physical property and IP, it's in basing much of the advocacy for infringing copyright on the distinction, but then crying like a baby just because the government flipped a few bits that also did not harm anyone's personal property, put anyone in jail, or otherwise cause any actual, demonstrable harm to anyone. Either control of data can have a real world value worthy of legal protection or it can't, but the position of the freeloaders in this discussion appears to be that information they want to take has no value but the information they want to control is sacrosanct. I can't see that as anything but transparent hypocrisy.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Antique Geekmeister]

Do not ever assume that the Department of Homeland Security could find its own bottom with a strip search and a full body X-ray. Due to various laws such as the Patriot Act, they've been protected from having to actually pay attention to civil rights. They are _extremely_ careless of "having their paperwork in order".

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Foobar of Borg]

A Domain name is personal property, a court order taking it from someone without notice of the opportunity to respond to a complaint violates the second principle of natural justice, Audi alteram partem, a important backbone to our legal system. The concept of Audi alteram partem is extremely sacred in common law and requires the other side at least the opportunity to be heard before any action is taken. This is reinforced by several portions of the US Constitution and endless relevant case law. Any action, in any common law court, requires notice to be given and a reasonable time to respond to the allegations prior to and decision made by a court. You cant take someone property in absentia without at least giving them reasonable notice. PERIOD.

Well, considering that the US government has gone so far as to throw out the nearly 800 year-old requirement of Habeus Corpus, it is not surprising that they are doing all they can to destroy any and all vestiges of civilized law. All that corporations and the US government ultimately wants is "fuck with us, or have something we want to take, and we will destroy you" kind of law.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Anthony Mouse]

Please look into "asset forfeiture", especually for drug related offenses. The ACLU is already active in this, as described at http://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/easy-money-civil-asset-forfeiture-abuse-police. Neither a conviction, nor a court order, is required for these seizures, and you _can_ have your assets or vehicle seized without a charge ever being filed.

And people say there is no slippery slope.

The War on Drugs has brought some of the most serious abuses of government power in this country. It demands to be rolled back, not pointed to as precedent to be emulated.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[blackraven14250]

No, they (the owners) have access to the original via their hosting provider, and direct via IP, and possibly via physical access to the hosting servers. They didn't shut down the servers or change the data on them in any way, just seized the domain names that other random people use to access it.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[ScrewMaster]

This is one of the complaints about ICE and DHS.. they tend to exempt themselves from silly things like courts and constitutional amendments because they claim things that cross the boarder are not protected. This is why they can do things like search your laptop without cause even though normal police can not do this.

The Supreme Court has generally backed them up on this, so it's not hard to understand why. The real question is this: since the disease of unaccountability has a one hundred percent infection rate of organizations that suffer from it ... why do we continue to allow it? I do not care who you are, I do not care how honorable you may think you are, if you have power over me you require effective oversight, and you must be held accountable for whatever actions (or inactions) you perform in my name, and the name of my fellow citizens. That is so goddamn basic to civilized society (human nature being what it is) that any law, or ruling, that successfully eliminates such protections should be enough to have a lawmaker or a judge removed from office

Period. Governance by Patriot Act does not work, not if you want to live in anything resembling a free society, not if you want to live unafraid of your own leaders. Let's face a few facts here: Americans are more at risk from amoral or criminal acts on the part of their various governments (local, State and Federal) than they are of terrorism or outright war. That's not how the Founders intended us to live.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Several people seem to be making an argument like yours, so let's step back for a moment and analyse what you're saying.

In one sentence, you say that many business owners depend on having a functioning web site for their business. Sure, I'll buy that; I run businesses with on-line elements myself, and downtime is no fun.

In the next sentence, you make a common anti-copyright argument about "potential" lost sales. Again, there is some merit there: I certainly wouldn't claim that every illegally distributed copy of a work results in an actual lost sale.

The trouble is, you can no more prove that a web site going down cost a sale (or caused some other form of damage to a non-commercial site) than you can prove that giving someone an illegal copy of some music/movie/software did. We could probably agree that some significant amount of damage is being done in many such cases, but we couldn't accurately quantify that damage in any objective way.

Given that people who are almost certainly infringing copyright are frequently getting away with it on legal technicalities, and awards of damages in the few cases that have gone to court have been either limited initially or reduced on appeal because the original award was disproportionate to the proven actual damages, I find it hard to have much sympathy with hypothetical arguments about how knocking out domains that are probably being used mostly or entirely for illegal purposes is somehow causing some huge loss to some legitimate business.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I think that the grandparent's argument of the boils down to the fact that stealing physical goods deprives the owner of those goods, whilst copying it does not deprive them of the ability to use it.

The trouble is, while the anti-copyright crowd keep making that argument, it isn't really true.

Suppose you make your money by producing creative works. Typically, the up-front cost of that creation is high, but the marginal cost of copying and distribution is low. In most cases, you will market the product at a relatively low price, in order to amortise the sunk costs over the entire consumer base and sell at a cost the market will bear.

The major advantage of copyright over most other legal frameworks that I have seen proposed is that it supports this sharing of costs among the consumer base, so that many people can each contribute a small part of the overall cost but all can benefit from the entire work. This makes the creation and distribution of many works viable where relying on direct funding seems unlikely to work.

The economics of the entire industry depend on this mechanic working. However, while copying does not deprive the original holder of the material of their own copy, it certainly could have a potential impact on the market. If you reduce the size of that market, then you reduce the number of people contributing to the pool that pays (or doesn't pay) for the original cost of the work, which affects the financial viability of the product in the first place. Equally, for works that are going to break even anyway, reducing the size of the market will reduce the profit that the work makes, which is a disincentive to invest more in order to produce better works.

Some people claim that content providers are making enough from paying customers anyway, but that's a silly argument for several reasons. Firstly, it ignores the fundamental unfairness of the law-abiding subsidising the law-breaking. Secondly, it doesn't work in the limit: if we legalised copying and everyone behaved as the law-breakers do today, then the creators would have no income stream and the incentive to create and share new works would be gone. Thirdly, "content providers" in these claims usually actually means Big Media/"MAFIAA", and ignores the fact that many small organisations and individuals create valuable content and are just trying to make a living from it, and many small businesses and individual careers come to an early end because they can't make enough money.

Some people claim that you can't assume every illegal copy represents a lost sale. Well, no, of course you can't. But it's equally absurd to pretend that everyone who would have bought a work legally still does so even though they already have an illegal copy of the material. People used to claim that they were "just trying" works to "see if they like them before they buy", but since these days we have hard statistics from things like recent games with on-line elements and the popularity of specific works on P2P networks, we know very well that huge numbers of people are ripping products that are new/popular and continuing to use them well beyond just trying them out.

Some people claim that they are somehow doing content providers a favour by "marketing" their product for free. It's a good job not everyone takes that view, or there would be a whole lot of marketing but still no sales, and marketing is a cost centre rather than a revenue generator. And of course, content providers have the option to distribute taster material or even entire products for free if they wish to do so; if the marketing argument really does work, then those providers who give their work away for free will benefit and market forces will promote this behaviour in the long term. Given that this hasn't happened in the past decade, I won't hold my breath, though.

In short, while copying a work illegally may not deprive the original holder of a copy, it most certainly can deprive them of their ability to use it.

Corprations are stealing american ideas and prods

[Ryanrule]

and GIVING them to china

WTF? What's the threat to national security?

[EmagGeek]

Seriously, kids downloading music poses what threat, exactly, to national security?

One more piece of evidence that our government is just a puppet of deep-pocketed corporations and special interest groups.

I'm starting to think N. Korea is spot on...

Re:Welcome to Obama's America.

[amiga3D]

Idiot. It doesn't matter which party runs the White House. This is about money. Money always rules.

Where is the Constitution? Where is due process?

[SonicSpike]

The 5th Amendment says that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Due process means that one must be found guilty in a court of law by a jury of their peers.

And since when did the mission of DHS become copyright enforcement? And where did they get the unilateral authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner?

Last time I checked, "copyprivilege" infringement required a civil suit by the person who held the privilege to begin with? Were these domain holders sued? Were they found guilty (liable) by a court of law?

Is the US government out of control and operating outside the bounds of the Constitution?

Government control

[bonch]

Now do you people understand the opposition to net neutrality? The government would "regulate" torrent traffic and other things that high-paying lobbyists didn't like.

So much for the hoax theories

[Cederic]

At least we can put to bed the suggestion that yeseterday's story was a hoax.

Next can we please retrieve ICANN from US control and cut off the US DNS masters? I think it's pretty clear they can't be trusted to run the internet :(

They did have a court order

[SuperKendall]

Not to defend what they are doing as I don't like it either... but from TFA it seems they did have a court order to seize these domains. The question is, how those court orders were arrived at.

The torrent site seemed the most troubling as you can't really see how an order can be issued against what they were doing. The majority of the sites seemed to be selling counterfeit material like clothes and handbags; still iffy but you could see where possibly customs could have a hand in shutting down transfer of illegal goods.

Re:Corprations are stealing american ideas and pro

[jhoegl]

Trickle down economics... the rich just move to another country.

Re:Witness the creation of an alternative to DNS

[JWSmythe]

    Be careful, you're on the edge of invoking Godwin's law. I'm not saying you are wrong, but I'd hate for a perfectly good statement to be nullified from simple misphrasing.

    Seizes property: check
    Person: check
    Thought: as expressed through action, speech, writing, or art... check.

    We're not so far from sliding into an Orwellian nightmare.

    or...

    Big Brother is watching you. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

The Net interprets censorship...

[Pliny]

John Gilmore's quote was always an oversimplification. The net itself doesn't do anything but move packets. The people that use the net are the ones that find ways over, under, and around censorship. And this is censorship. We can argue about whether or not it's justified (and in the case of websites selling Chanel knockoffs as the real thing, it might be) but the fact the ICE and DHS have exerted control over ICANN is not good.

I'm a US citizen, born and raised here. The prospect of my government having the power to control the web scares me shitless. It's time to start working on a decentralized, cryptographically sound successor to DNS. It's also time to get serious about IPv6 and IPSec (encryption at the network layer) as a way to foil deep packet inspection.

Re:Welcome to Obama's America.

[Degro]

Exactly. We in the other half spent 8 years saying the same about Bush. It's like the whole thing is rigged to flip-flop every 8-12 years, just enough to keep each side in fighting spirits and everyone distracted away from that top 1-2%.

Cut DHS Budget

[syleishere]

Wasting tax payers money protecting music and movie industry instead of all the middle class workers who want file sharing who make up majority of voters! People will fight back on this one, can't arrest every person in north america, and in the process they'll further worsen the american dollar, especially when they are forcing file sharers to secure domains and servers out of country. In grand scheme of things, movie and music industry will have to learn how to make money off banners and online marketing like rest of us, best thing we can do is run them out of money, and cut their abuse of government funding, with no money for lawyers , and hitting them where it counts, we can aspire to true freedom.

Re:Where is the Constitution? Where is due process

[ShiftyOne]

I find it hard to say that a one sided argument to a judge of DHS's choosing is due process.

Re:Welcome to Obama's America.

[fishexe]

It didn't matter, but it might in the future. The Tea Party is the last hope for a government that actually stays in its Constitutional box. I don't care what you think about particular people involved with it, just get out there and support less government.

Bullshit. I know quite a few Tea Partiers and they will take away every last right I have as soon as they get the chance. These are people who only make a stink when the party they don't like is in power, doing the EXACT SAME THINGS that the party they do like was doing before. How many Tea Partiers do you know who said anything at all about the Bush admin's declaration that Americans only have freedom of speech within "Free Speech Zones"? It's not about liking or disliking the people involved in it, it's about recognizing that the Tea Party Movement ITSELF is a movement of hypocrisy and cynicism that claims to be about less government but really works towards more government by the proper group of mostly old white men (with the occasional token minority or female) who put large corporations first and everyday citizens second. If you participate in the Tea Party believing otherwise, you're a sucker and a patsy.

Uh, "Homeland Security"?

[AudioEfex]

The part I don't get is "Homeland Security".

WTH are they doing messing with copyright issues? This has nothing to do with "Immigration and Customs" either.

Homeland Security should be protecting us from all these supposed "DANGER DANGER DANGER!" things that are out there that we are so scared of we are supposed to be letting the pervs at the TSA play with our junk and feel up our kids for.

Homeless and starving families right here on our own soil, health care is a mess, bridges are falling apart, all of our "national defense" is half-way across the world, we are borrowing all our operating money from Asia...but hey, who cares, someone is downloading last week's episode of "Bones" they missed - send out Homeland Security!

What a joke.