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DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

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Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#61

Post by BearGoesChirp »

jmcdiesel wrote: post #10
mankash666 wrote: post #4

This is the proper thing to do for DreamHost. On an un-related matter, domain registrars (Google, Go-Daddy) shouldn't be the ones censoring free speech of the alt-right by revoking Daily Stormer's registration. However vile and despicable the views expressed on the site, they have a constitutional right to it. If they indulge in illegal activities, alerting law enforcement is the recommended course of action, just li…

They have a constitutional right to say whatever they want without punishment by the government. Thats where that right ends. The constitution has no power in the private sector, its an agreement from the government. If a dns provider doesn't want to take money from a hate group and support them by providing them with visibility, why should they be forced to? Its a private company. Now, if the US government was a dom…

>The constitution has no power in the private sector, its an agreement from the government.

So going the libertarian route and shrinking government would remove protections. That doesn't seem quite right, because it was still the government that allowed the private sector to take over a duty of the government.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#62

Post by wmil »

marricks wrote: post #32
wildmusings wrote: post #13

They're seeking the identities of the rioters on January 20th. Over 200 people were arrested but many more have yet to face the consequences for what they did.

So there's a million or so people that visited that website and they want to unmask all those people to attempt to find 200 alleged rioters? That sure sounds like an overreaching fishing expedition.

No, they are grabbing all of the comments and all of the logs so that they don't have to go back and get a new warrant every time they find something of interest. Broad warrants for electronic records are quite common.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#63

Post by deftnerd »

ceejayoz wrote: post #29
nostromo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder where we draw the line, particularly with ubiquitous companies like Google, Facebook, and ISPs. Would you be ok if Comcast decided to disallow you from accessing sites they determine are offensive? Or filesharing? Or porn? Even if it is their right to do so, it'd make me uncomfortable.

"No Nazis" is a perfectly fine side to draw the line on, in my book.

I'm certainly not a fan of nazis or "white power" groups, but this can easily turn into the kind of behavior that turns into hunts for communists or socialists.

Most of the HN crowd, including myself, are big fans of a lot of programs that are easily seen as socialist such as universal healthcare or universal income.

I know the "slippery slope" trope seems tired at times, but this might be a case where it's warranted.

I actually respect companies and organizations that uphold the rights of people they disagree with, such as the ACLU and Cloudflare. They get a lot of flak for that (ACLU for defending neo-nazi rights to protest, cloudflare for protecting websites for pirates, hackers, radicals, etc).

As an individual that leans very left, my instinct is to say "Alright Google and GoDaddy! Screw those Nazis!" but the same leftist freedom-loving side of me says "I would hate it if a controversial site I ran was shut down because it had an unpopular opinion"

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#64

Post by JohnStrange »

mankash666 wrote: post #4

This is the proper thing to do for DreamHost. On an un-related matter, domain registrars (Google, Go-Daddy) shouldn't be the ones censoring free speech of the alt-right by revoking Daily Stormer's registration. However vile and despicable the views expressed on the site, they have a constitutional right to it. If they indulge in illegal activities, alerting law enforcement is the recommended course of action, just li…

This is indeed an unrelated matter. But since you ask: Hundreds of thousands of US soldiers died fighting against Nazis to free Europe from tyranny. Not doing business with Nazis is everyone's patriotic duty.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#65

Post by mulletbum »

borisj wrote: post #53
marricks wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's a million or so people that visited that website and they want to unmask all those people to attempt to find 200 alleged rioters? That sure sounds like an overreaching fishing expedition.

They already found 200+ alleged rioters. They're looking for the identities of the other 65,844,400.

I can't up-vote you enough for how much I laughed.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#66

Post by krath94 »

Sorry, but antifa is more than Anti-Trump Activists, they are dangerous. They attack people for political reasons and are largely unpunished because they wear all black and wear masks. They are the clowns that started fires in berkeley and hit the Trump support in the head with a bike lock, causing a fractured skull. That's no good imo.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#67

Post by gozur88 »

mulmen wrote: post #14
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #5

Why is a political organization retaining any info that isn't the minimum to do their job? It's not like both sides haven't been trying to get their enemies membership lists for the past 100+yr.

Why would a political organization feel the need to protect their information from the DOJ? This isn't a matter of "sides", it is a matter of extreme overreach by the executive branch.

It's not overreach if the political organization is behaving like a criminal organization. Much of the rioting and property damage at the inauguration was clearly planned, so the DOJ is just doing its job here.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#68

Post by 0x00000000 »

mulmen wrote: post #28
0x00000000 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And Google and Go-Daddy have a right to deny service to anyone they like People keep saying this but I don't think it is true at all. Not trying to be inflammatory, but that wasn't too popular of an opinion when it was the bakery refusing to make a cake for a gay couple

Sexual orientation is (or at least should be) protected so it cannot be used as the basis for discrimination, neither can race or religion. Being an inflammatory racist is not (and should not be) protected.

Right, it should be. So GoDaddy et al would get more than just bad press if they suddenly decided to unlist gay rights websites.

Which brings me to my point. Protected classes are arbitrary and discriminatory in themselves. Did you know that it is not possible to discriminate against someone under 40 based on their age? Only people over 40 are a protected class for age discrimination. Why should the protections of the law only apply to those deemed worthy of protection?

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#69

Post by jfaucett »

ceejayoz wrote: post #29
nostromo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder where we draw the line, particularly with ubiquitous companies like Google, Facebook, and ISPs. Would you be ok if Comcast decided to disallow you from accessing sites they determine are offensive? Or filesharing? Or porn? Even if it is their right to do so, it'd make me uncomfortable.

"No Nazis" is a perfectly fine side to draw the line on, in my book.

Everyone agrees with that. The problem is with the semantics of that statement i.e. who is a Nazi and who decides who is a Nazi? Anyone can call anyone a name and then ban them for being that. That doesn't mean the person in question actually is that thing.

This is why instead of names we should use verifiable actions IMHO. Are you calling for acts of violence against people of another race y/n? Are you attacking and injuring people y/n? Are you destroying public or private property and entering into acts of vandalism y/n? Are you telling people they are worth less because of some attribute they can't control like skin color, sexual orientation, etc y/n?

We can pretty much all agree on this stuff. It just gets problematic when you start throwing labels around and basing policy of off that, because everyone has a different idea of what some label means. For instance, Nazis were a socialist workers party who preached a large and benevolent social welfare program, but many socialists or social democrats would be offended if we called them Nazis even though there is much overlap in many of their particular policies. The same is true of conservatives who could also be broadly labeled as Nazis since they may tend to be more nationalist as were the Nazis.

Again its just a flawed way of thinking about the issues IMHO.

Re: DOJ Demands Files on Anti-Trump Activists, and DreamHost Resists

#70

Post by CydeWeys »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57
tw04 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no planet on which you can lump those three together. One provides access to the internet, one provides a service on top of it. ISPs can and should be regulated... in fact they should pass a law... maybe call it net neutrality. That is where we should draw the line, beginning and end of story. If google deems a site offensive and doesn't want to return it in search listings, I'll find another search engine. I…

> That is where we should draw the line Domain registrars look more like utilities, e.g. ISPs, than applications, e.g. Google.

There are hundreds (thousands?) of registrars you can choose to do business with. Meanwhile, there's only one power company that's run lines to your house, only one water company running pipes, and you have a choice of 2-3 ISPs if you're lucky. Those are utilities. A random business service provider with hundreds of choices available on a competitive free market is not a utility.
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