US DOJ Drops Charges Against Two Seized Websites

angry tapir writes "The U.S. Department of Justice has dropped its case against two Spanish websites that stream sports events nearly 17 months after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized the sites and shut them down for alleged copyright violations. In a one-page brief to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the district said his office had dropped the case against Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org. ICE seized the two sites on Jan. 31, 2011, and the DOJ asked the court to order that Puerto 80 Projects, the owner of the sites, forfeit the sites to the U.S. government."

Comments

Re:"forfeit the sites to the U.S. government"

[LordLucless]

It doesn't require any action by the owners. The US government (well, DOJ) contacts the registrar, and demands that they point the domain somewhere else. They don't touch the physical hardware (unless they're seizing that too) - the site is still operational, but cannot be accessed by its domain.

Re:Careful with the opposition here

[DNS-and-BIND]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/cbc-staff-opposition-to-obama-is-racist/article/1342346

Re:No even a "we're sorry?"

[f3rret]

Isn't the .com and .org TLDs American? They only seized the domains and not necessarily the server hardware, as I understand it. Besides if the sites were running off American TLDs and were hosted in the US then it's no wonder that a US agency could seize them.

Re:No even a "we're sorry?"

[Cyberax]

Yes, blaming Bush is exactly right in this case. Obama's deficits are the direct cause of the bubble collapse: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/15/484767/obama-budget-chart/?mobile=nc

He has failed to cleanup Bush's toxic mess of economy, sure. But large deficits are not his fault.

Re:DNS = FAIL

[cpghost]

Yes, the hierarchical nature of DNS invites exactly this kind of abuse. However, to be fair: designers of the DNS never expected this kind of lawfare. They thought about cities being nuked etc..., not about a rogue government controlling the top-level of the DNS hierarchy.

As to countries going offline when a submarine cable is being cut, it's their problem: they were supposed to provide some levels of redundancy by connecting to multiple international backbones in the first place.

Re:No even a "we're sorry?"

[capnkr]

Har. Nice try - but check out who wrote that, it's no surprise they're spouting the praise of and defense for Obama.

Author - Michael Linden of the "Center for American Progress Action Fund". Who are they? Wikipedia says:

The Center for American Progress is a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. Its website states that the organization is "dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action." It has its headquarters in Washington D.C. Its President and Chief Executive Officer is Neera Tanden, who worked for the Obama and Clinton administrations and for Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. Its first President and Chief Executive Officer was John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to then U.S. President Bill Clinton. Podesta remains with the organization as Chairman of the Board. Located in Washington, D.C., the Center for American Progress has a campus outreach group, Campus Progress, and a sister advocacy organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Citing Podesta's influence in the formation of the Obama Administration, a November 2008 article in Time stated that "not since the Heritage Foundation helped guide Ronald Reagan's transition in 1981 has a single outside group held so much sway."

Wow - could they even fit any more Democrats in there? It'd be tough...

No surprise it is funded by none other than George Souros. If you'll take the time to check out the origins and organizational makeup of that "non-partisan" (Hah!) CAP, you'll see that it is a literal Who's Who of Democratic Party faithful power brokers.

"Blaming Bush" is just Obama's lame excuse, that's obvious to see. IIRC, during his campaign he vowed to clean the mess up, and rather quickly. "Epic fail", I believe that is called.