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

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Ironically, of course, grabbing 75 domain names as part of a taxpayer funded handjob for the MPAA's bottom line is a tiny; but highly visible, slice of ICE's activities and, by far, not the most sinister.

This is an organization, after all, that has approximately 380,000 detainees enjoying its involuntary hospitality at any given time, in a nationwide network of facilities that range from "low profile" to "seriously shadowy". A fair percentage of them are undesirables of various stripes, so the public is wholly uninterested; but the process is opaque enough that their decisions aren't exactly subject to rigorous double checking. On occasion, a mysterious death or tragicomic "American citizen of the brown persuasion accidentally repatriated to some random country that he looked like he might be from, ICE tells his lawyer that they don't know where he is" story makes local headlines; but that is about it.

I realize that Slashdot is a good headline for melodramatic techie myopia; but domain-name seizures are boy scout stuff by the standards of ICE's bread-and-butter activities...

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Skal Tura]

mod parent something like +trillion insightfull.

I for one fear of this, and am now forced to take .fi domain for our business and simply make our .com a forwarder. We operate torrent seedboxes, nothing illegal in them itself, but many users seem to use it for illegal purposes, as DMCA requests for our US servers is "quite frequent", despite we are not US business, using US provider forces us to follow DMCA for the servers in question. Operating within completely in the legal domain, doing everything legally, does seem to provide us little to no safety against the whims of US goverment.

Yes, our market is likely to be used for illegal purposes. So are the tools of locksmith or the common kitchen knife possibility to be used for bad. And what the article shows is one of those.

The business plan of MAFIAA is outdated, and should be updated, but whenever new technology comes around something like this happens, but this is the first time actual tangible efforts has happened afaik.

I'm sick of this, the world is crazy. What matters is what the average person thinks and does, and businesses as well as goverments SHOULD fear the population. It's the only way for humanity to get the most out of our lives, and the most progress.

You cannot stop progress. I sense a darknet to rise if this becomes too common.

Anyone know the domain registrars in question? Is it everything ICANN controls or specific domain registrars? That would show which registrars to avoid.
I'm also curious why they did not shut down piratebay etc. as well? what is the pattern on the sites closed? ie. what is the pattern by which they do the seizing.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[dwlovell]

You don't get convicted/punished until proven guilty, that doesn't mean they don't shut down the operation when it's obvious they are actively selling fake goods right now. It is the courts job to decide what criminal charges may exist. Perhaps the shop owner didn't know they were fake? Just because the owner may not be the person criminally liable, that doesn't mean you allow the operation to continue.

It was obvious these sites were selling fake goods and distributing copyrighted works. They shut them down and the owner's get to plead their case about how they didn't know or whatever their case is. The site still gets shut down now if they are breaking laws now.

Re:One of Our Cancers

[Sepodati]

Innocent until proven guilty, or even better, the presumption of innocence, only applies in the court. YOU have the presumption of innocence and your accuser must overcome that.

These DNS entries were seized with a court order where enough evidence was shown to take action. No actual property was seized. The servers, files, original sites, goods, etc. are still in the hands of the owners. They'll have due process and the presumption of innocence if and when they are brought into court. Since I'm sure most of these owners are outside of the US, court will never happen, though.

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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

Re:Where is the Constitution? Where is due process

[nycguy]

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

Thankfully, our President was formerly a professor who lectured on Constitutional law. I'm sure he's going to sort this one out for us ASAP.

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 :(

Re:Where is the Constitution? Where is due process

[Anonymous Coward]

If you made it to the 2nd paragraph of the NYT article, you would know the sites were taken down with a warrant issued by a United States District Court. I would assume these sites were investigated and found to be distributing faked goods and infringing copyrights. Hardly No due process.

Although I admit, it is disconcerting the DHS is behind this.

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:Full Of Shit?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This one was pretty classy. Nothing says "due process" like denying a mental patient access to care, and then deporting him to a country whose language he doesn't even speak, and from which he isn't even descended, despite having evidence that he is a US citizen(and thus not even under ICE jurisdiction)...

This article is rather more general. Cool thing is, immigration violations/deportations are considered to be civil, rather than criminal matters, despite the fact that people involved in them are generally detained in jail-esque conditions. No public defender for you, sucker. And proving your citizenship is a total cakewalk under those conditions...

Googling turns up a variety of similar stories. Perhaps the snappiest is the one that begins with the money quote from one 'James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of State and Local Coordination': "If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear.".

Obviously, if only by sheer statistical probability, ICE does manage to deport a fair number of authentic illegal immigrants every year; but they are about as callous and sloppy about it as you'd expect a bunch of jackboots with broad power and limited oversight to be.

Unconstitutional?

[Nailer235]

The Supreme Court has already decided that prejudgment seizures of property are unconstitutional if not accompanied by notice and a hearing on the merits. See: Fuentes v. Shevin I don't see why this wouldn't apply to domain names as well. Wonder how long it will be before this statute gets challenged.