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70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

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Re: 70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

#31

Post by chc »

Yzupnick wrote: post #29
jeromec wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would venture to guess it is impossible to name a president that did not infringe on the rights of citizens. The degree to which any perceived infringement occurs is what is significant. Bush pushed for and succeeded in suspending habeas corpus, a Constitutional protection by which people can challenge their imprisonment. This was only done twice in history, once by Bush and once by Lincoln at the start of the Civi…

And yet is continued by the current administration: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.text.h... And Obama authorized the assassination of a US citizen; something even Bush never did: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen.h...

If possible, it's generally better to link to someplace other than the You Must Be A Registered Member Times. A signup form is not very informative.

Re: 70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

#32

Post by zaidf »

DanBlake wrote: post #18

I am skeptical - The host, https://www.burst.net/ Looks like a template monster design with a reseller system, no traffic rank and a nearly empty forum- From a outsider looking in, it looks like a host that is barely in business and likely ran by one guy from his apartment. Maybe they are over-exaggerating for press? Maybe the server crashed, and they dont want the bad press so did a bogus excuse? Stranger things hav…

Trust me, burstnet is far from a small host. They went through a rebranding I believe as part of their clean up effort from their last brand which had a reputation for attracting high bandwidth questionable sites.

Re: 70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

#33

Post by loewenskind »

fmora wrote: post #17
DavidSJ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

derwiki replied to this comment by saying: "The gag order was ruled unconstitutional as an infringement of free speech, in the Doe v. Ashcroft case." (same article) For some reason, his reply is dead, but it seems like a valuable comment so I'm reproducing it.

Thank god for the separation of powers. It is incredible how many rights the Bush presidency attempted to take away from its citizens all in the name of national security. The more I read stuff like this the more it seems that we were heading to a totalitarian government. Edit: In case anybody wonders why I threw in Bush's name in there is because the Patriot Act, created during his presidency, greatly extended the N…

>The more I read stuff like this the more it seems that we were heading to a totalitarian government.

Well, by Mussolini's definition, the US has been a Fascist country for a long time [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket. And this is from the 30's.

Re: 70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

#35

Post by Confusion »

fmora wrote: post #19
fmora wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank god for the separation of powers. It is incredible how many rights the Bush presidency attempted to take away from its citizens all in the name of national security. The more I read stuff like this the more it seems that we were heading to a totalitarian government. Edit: In case anybody wonders why I threw in Bush's name in there is because the Patriot Act, created during his presidency, greatly extended the N…

If you are going to down vote me at least explain why.

If you are being downvoted, at least wait a few hours for the score to settle itself, before complaining.

Re: 70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

#36

Post by blaix »

DanBlake wrote: post #18

I am skeptical - The host, https://www.burst.net/ Looks like a template monster design with a reseller system, no traffic rank and a nearly empty forum- From a outsider looking in, it looks like a host that is barely in business and likely ran by one guy from his apartment. Maybe they are over-exaggerating for press? Maybe the server crashed, and they dont want the bad press so did a bogus excuse? Stranger things hav…

I definitely got the vibe of this being handled a bit amateurishly.

Re: 70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

#37

Post by fhars »

fmora wrote: post #19
fmora wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank god for the separation of powers. It is incredible how many rights the Bush presidency attempted to take away from its citizens all in the name of national security. The more I read stuff like this the more it seems that we were heading to a totalitarian government. Edit: In case anybody wonders why I threw in Bush's name in there is because the Patriot Act, created during his presidency, greatly extended the N…

If you are going to down vote me at least explain why.

Why? Because there seems to be a short attention span downvoting cabal on HN. Any post that is mildly controversial and requires people to think has a moderate to high chance of going to -2 within the first 45 minutes, only to bounce back to more than 10 after a few hours. Don't worry about early votes.

Re: 70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

#38

Post by GiraffeNecktie »

Yzupnick wrote: post #29
jeromec wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would venture to guess it is impossible to name a president that did not infringe on the rights of citizens. The degree to which any perceived infringement occurs is what is significant. Bush pushed for and succeeded in suspending habeas corpus, a Constitutional protection by which people can challenge their imprisonment. This was only done twice in history, once by Bush and once by Lincoln at the start of the Civi…

And yet is continued by the current administration: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.text.h... And Obama authorized the assassination of a US citizen; something even Bush never did: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen.h...

The speech you point to does not support your point. My reading is that he is trying to cleaning up the toxic legal spill that the previous administration left behind (while trying not to give his Republic critics ammunition).

Re. the assassination of a US citizen, that hardly seems notable given that the guy is very actively involved in putting together terrorist attacks. Surely any president would make the same decision.

Re: 70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

#39

Post by Ardit20 »

That is a bit Kafkaesque.

Everyone has the right to know why their right is being denied or what they are being charged with. If it was a privet firm then fine, but the government can't just go around closing websites without saying if not in detail then in general what the charges are. How, if the website owner is wronged, is he able to challenge the decision if he does not even know what the allegations are against him.

Re: 70,000 Blogs Shut Down by U.S. Law Enforcement

#40

Post by joshwa »

DavidSJ wrote: post #10
joshwa wrote: post #6

If the hosting company says that they can't name the agency and can't say anything about the nature of the claim, that immediately makes me think of a National Security Letter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter "[A National Security Letter] is a demand letter issued to a particular entity or organization to turn over various record and data pertaining to individuals. They require no probable cause…

derwiki replied to this comment by saying: "The gag order was ruled unconstitutional as an infringement of free speech, in the Doe v. Ashcroft case." (same article) For some reason, his reply is dead, but it seems like a valuable comment so I'm reproducing it.

From my reading of the wikipedia articles about those cases, there has been no definitive decision on these-- just some refusal to vacate a stay, and then congress revised the law to have some congressional review.

Perhaps someone else can point me to something more definitive describing how the gag orders were ruled unconstitutional?

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