How The Attempted Censorship Of File Sharing Sites Avoids Due Process
from the day-in-court? dept
We've already covered how some US Senators are pitching a bill to censor websites that are deemed centered around "infringing" uses, and noted the irony of the bill's lead sponsor, Senator Patrick Leahy, decrying internet censorship in other countries. That said, the more people dig into the details, the worse this bill appears to look. The EFF does a good job highlighting many of the rather serious problems with the bill.While most of the press coverage has discussed the process by which the Justice Department can go to a judge and get a website added to a blacklist, which ISPs and registrars will have to block, there's another part that hasn't received nearly enough attention: which is that there's an effective loophole that could allow similar blocks without judicial review:
The first is a list of all the websites hit with a censorship court order from the Attorney General. The second, more worrying, blacklist is a list of domain names that the Department of Justice determines -- without judicial review -- are "dedicated to infringing activities." The bill only requires blocking for domains in the first list, but strongly suggests that domains on the second list should be blocked as well by providing legal immunity for Internet intermediaries and DNS operators who decide to block domains on the second blacklist as well. (It's easy to predict that there will be tremendous pressure for Internet intermediaries of all stripes to block these "deemed infringing" sites on the second blacklist.)We've seen this game in the past, of course. Generally when you provide companies immunity for sites doing something, they'll do it. So, suddenly we're taking the most basic judicial oversight out of the process of allowing the Justice Department -- which, again, is still staffed with a bunch of former entertainment industry lawyers -- choose which sites should be blocked. It's difficult to see how anyone could think this is a reasonable idea.
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Filed Under: censorship, copyright, due process, orrin hatch, patrick leahy
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So with judicial review, one can be denied their first amendment rights?
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The catch about due process.
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Re: The catch about due process.
Since the shooting of the 7 year old girl in the basically home invasion of the WRONG HOUSE in California..... judges have been getting VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY leery of letting the police do these things.
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Also, is it a crime use an IP Addr rather than a name?
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Re:
TOR(win, lin., mac)
Proxychains(lin)(the great grandfather of all proxies)
TSOCKS(lin)
Freecap(win)
Sockschain(win)
Retroshare
Stealthnet
I2P(java crap in need of people to transpose it to other more stable language)
Osiris SPS(Serverless Portal System) (network overlay that aims to creates resilient, anonymous, untraceable websites)
Netsukuku (network overlay that is an entire network on top of the internet with it own TLD system)
Stegoshare
Freenet(java crap in need of people to transpose it to other more stable language)
OFFSystem(introduced the brightnet concept only works with real broadband because of extreme overhead)
GNUNet
TorChat
Choose your poison.
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Re:
it's called SSH.
connect to a box overseas and tunnel your traffic through that.
that's the problem with censoring the internet, it's so easy to get to that controlling it is nearly impossible.
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Only if you think other people may think it's racist.
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Thanks for highlighting this
I imagine in practice, there will be media companies who notify the DOJ of sites they consider questionable in an opening volley in licensing/purchasing negotiations.
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Re: Thanks for highlighting this
Only through the damned legal system!
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AG: I'm not telling the cops to rough this guy up for a confession, but I'll provide immunity to the cops in case they do...
AG: I can't issue warrants to search these homes, but if they get searched by ...anyone, immunity will be provided for tips leading to any arrests.
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I'm not sure people really understand what's going on here. They're not subverting the laws. They're subverting freedom of speech, expression and privacy that once were the fundamental foundation of Western governments. There is no democracy without free speech. Once information is controlled so are the minds of the masses.
They're is actually a law being considered in the Senate of the United States that allows censorship of speech based solely on opposition to certain corporate interests. And it has a large nonpartisan support base. That should scare the s**t out of everyone who actually likes having a modicum of freedom. This isn't the slippery slope. It's kicking the rock hold the avalanche back.
Hell, in the US in the past it was difficult to impose censorship even during war when a great many lives were at stake. Now it's being imposed in the name of a few corporate interests who's business is being undermined by technological advances.
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What's the magic number?
So what's the magic number? 90% infringing, 80%? Who would be responsible for scouring these sites to determine the exact percentage of infringing material?
Personally, I don't think there's a feasible, cost-effective process for determining which sites should be blocked. Therefore, none should be.
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Senator Patrick Leahy, decrying internet censorship
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=4437&wit_id=2629
The current link just goes to the same EFF article.
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Senator Patrick Leahy, decrying internet censorship in other countries
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=4437&wit_id=2629
The current link just goes to the same EFF article.
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Lemme see Leahy is proposing a bill that will by some form of magic apply to Canadian, Mexican, Caribbean and other off shore but near by ISP's and DNS operators? I guess he thinks the entire Internet is located in the U.S.A and not global? Either that or he figures that it's okay to legislate extra-territorially whereas he's scream blood murder if someone tried that with the United States?
And there's a scale of infringement? Not according to the RIAA and MPAA there isn't so bye bye Google, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, I guess.
Block all of usenet and irc? Good luck with that.
And isn't Leahy forgetting that one of the factors leading to the American revolution was this small notion of due process?
Or is Leahy channeling his inner George III George's worst bouts of syphilis? (The 1770s as it happens.)
It's painfully obvious that Leahy has forgotten about the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Bill of Rights.
Someone here is bought and paid for by the folks behind ACTA and is getting there first to prove his loyalty.
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Re:
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"Or is Leahy channeling his inner George III George's worst bouts of syphilis? (The 1770s as it happens.)"
Should read: Or is Leahy channeling his inner George III IN George's worst bouts of syphilis? (The 1770s as it happens.)
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PETITION TO THE SENATE
http://demandprogress.org/
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