Protecting American business is the true business of America.
The Homeland Security Department’s customs enforcement division has gone on a Web site shutdown spree, closing down at least 76 domains this week, according to online reports.
While many of the web domains were sites that trafficked in counterfeit brand name goods, and some others linked to copyright-infringing file-sharing materials, at least one site was a Google-like search engine, causing alarm among web freedom advocates who worry the move steps over the line into censorship.
All the shut sites are now displaying a Homeland Security warning that copyright infringers can face up to five years in prison.
[…]
Homeland Security’s ability to shut down sites without a court order evidently comes from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a Clinton-era law that allows Web sites to be closed on the basis of a copyright complaint. Critics have long assailed the DMCA for being too broad, as complainants don’t need to prove copyright infringement before a site can be taken down.News of the shutdowns has some observers wondering whether the US really needs COICA, the anti-counterfeiting bill that passed through a Senate committee with unanimous approval last week. That bill would allow the federal government to block access to Web sites that attorneys general deem to have infringed on copyright.
In a vaguely unrelated story, a poll shows a huge percentage of Americans no longer feel the US Government operates the way the Founding Fathers intended.
UPDATE: Even though this story was played high in the NYT and elsewhere, I’d advise you read this info on a hackers site suggesting we are witnessing an elaborate hoax. — JCD
Remember, downloading that Kesha song supports Osama! bleh..
Change you can believe in!
Citizens of the US like to complain that the government is not running as intended.
But they don’t realise that this has been the state of their nation since the 1870s.
So if we go by what previous generations have done, why should we believe that current citizens will do any different?
They will not. They are long dull and cowed by endless personal fantasy, drugs and propaganda scripted to lull them into a false sense of security.
The American Dream. Seems no one wants to wake up from it.
Cursor_
We have the best government corporations can buy. One nation under
GodGreed.It’s Obama’s fault because he’s black and has a muslim name!
This has nothing to do with Homeland Security being an institution created by a dumb Republican president nor that’s redundant, bureaucratic clone of the NSA!
Hmm, I think this people at this site may be a bit sensitive because of all those pictures they reuse from other sites.
[they are legally linked from the other sites..never stolen — ed]
The police state is here. It’s not “coming”, it’s not “building up”, it’s not “imminent” – it’s here. The police state always starts out to “justify” their procedures – they claim to make us “safe” , and they argue that they are “upholding laws”. They go after unpopular individuals or groups first before they generalize their martial law to ALL OF US. They stage phony “attacks” on citizens and public targets to frighten us into accepting the destruction of our civil liberties.
Hitler did the same thing. He didn’t take office and send the Jews to Buchenwald the next month. It took time to build his police state machine and creating a psychology of fear based on staged terror attacks was the first step. He burned the Reichstag building and blamed it on Communists, enabling him to start arresting “Communists”, and spread out from there. The establishment of the police state is a gradual and incremental process.
Our police state is here. What are you going to do about it?
To Angel H. Wong #5:
Angel, you’re right that Bush laid a lot of the groundwork especially with the Patriot Act, that was pushed through because of the US government staged 9/11 terror attack. However, Obama has not only done NOTHING to stop or repeal any of this – he has accelerated and enhanced the establishment of the police state. He fully supports what Bush did.
We must come to realize that there is no Left and Right any more, or Democrat or Republican, that is driving the policies of our government. These policies are being driven by greed and lust for power and control over the people. Obama is as bad, if not worse as he is undoubtedly more intelligent, thatn George Bush. Bush and Obama are both disgraces to this country as are Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush.
I like how Uncle Dave directly linked that picture to Torrent-Finder.. the site that is currently owned by Homeland Security…
[I do love irony! — UD]
The question is: does it serve the public interest to spend the public’s money (taxes) to police intellectual property, or should the infringed front the money to shutdown the infringers?
Well, in the Internet age, the infringers are a million individuals taking from ten thousand of the infringed (or so). So it is a freeforall, and only looks to become more so as bandwidth increases to 1GB/s to each individual (the content providers hope this doesn’t happen, and limit bandwidth to prevent wholesale theft).
In a capitalistic system, it is the responsibility of the content producers to protect their property. They must build some system to hide (encrypt) content, to keep it from escaping. In a facist system, the government protects the interests of the largest monied constituents against all others.
And UD’s irony has everyone on DU being placed on a government list of IP addresses of possible copyright violators.
Good move Dave!
[Luckily we are small potatoes. – ed]
“It Can Shut Down Your Domain Without Court Order”
Court order? Court Order? We don’ need to show you no stinkin’ court order. We got LETTERS from the AAs (RI and MP)
Very interesting. Are these web sites located in the US of good ole A? Out of curiosity, I pointed my browser at a couple of those sites and found them blocked here in Jakarta. If they are not hosted from US servers, it seems odd to me they can block international traffic.
Even more interesting Unc Dave, in the linked survey almost 40% of the population believes the Gov’t IS operating within the scope of the Constitution. Amazing.
The whole idea of patents and trademarks are silly. What are we in 4th grade? Running to the teacher sobbing because the other kids stole my idea or keeps repeating something I said first? It is impossible to steal an idea from someones brain. The second you “share” that idea, it is no longer yours alone. You have pretty much given it away. It should be the sole responsibility of the company to protect it’s secrets without the ability to drag the violent gang called the government to do their dirty work for them. As far as fraud is concerned, THAT is completely legitimate. If some third party creates a can with the coca cola logo and puts their version of soda in it, the consumer has been defrauded and has cause for action to gain reparation. Coca cola, on the other hand, would have to do a better job of distinguishing their brand so others don’t imitate it as easily. That is solely their responsibility.
When I was young and read 1984, I thought it would be awful to live in a country like that.
It is.
Doesn’t this just block them on the DNS servers? Aren’t they still reachable via their IP addresses?
Just circulate The IPs of the warez sites.
Direct quote from the linked article at the end: “A rather indicative poll released by Rasmussen earlier this week finds that a majority of Americans (44%) now believe that the government operates outside the confines of the Constitution”.
Last time I checked, which was right before I wrote this, a majority was *more than half*. That means the headline of that article, “A Majority Of Americans Believe The US Government No Longer Operates Within The Constitution”, is blatantly false. Go go shitty journalism.
16 – still reachable by host name/IP unless the site was hosted virtually.
Losing our freedoms is a small price to defend our freedoms! TIC
Wonder how long it is until they shut down WikiLeaks.
How does homeland security raise money?
“Well is like this see… If you want to keep up an internet presence you gotta make some, uh, ‘donations’…”
DHS is in the enviable position of being a government sanctioned home for cretins, pornophiles, financial and other kinds of hitmen.
Did you enjoy living in a democracy? ‘Cause its over baby…
#18 Ribbed?!! 😉
# 17 Yossarian said, “Last time I checked, which was right before I wrote this, a majority was *more than half*.”
Maybe you should check again – a better source. A majority can also mean most or more than any other subset.
On this case the set is 100%
44% believe the gov overreaches
39% believe the gov is within the Constitution
17% believe something else or did not respond
Therefore, the majority of this set believe the gov oversteps the boundaries established by the Constitution.
For you math majors out there, yes, I have oversimplified but Yossarian needed a simple answer.
We have definitely come around to the Obama ideal:
A goverment OF the Corporations
BY the Corporations and
FOR the Corporations
Soon we’ll all owe our souls to the Obama goverment store.
I am the master of my domain!
Copyright infringement places the nation at risk? Why is the DHS involved. Seems like they are expanding their role. Big Sis is replacing Big Brother.
“Wonder how long it is until they shut down WikiLeaks.”
Yes, that is most interesting. Makes one wonder about the true nature of these “leaks”.
And I though Bush as bad.
I had called Obama “Bush Lite”
I was wrong. Bush was simply to opening act to the main event.
Who would of thought that “Change we can believe in” was CHANGING FROM 1ST GEAR TO 4TH IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!
I don’t consider rawstory to be a reliable source for information. However, assuming this is all in fact true, lets not forget that the DHS can’t operate without funding.
Congress approves appropriations before the president. Democrats have been in control of the Senate and the House since Jan ’07. Bush and Obama cannot be blamed for supporting DHS without also blaming Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Let’s just call them all (Democrats and Republicans) enablers for a power drunk executive branch.