U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’ • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#121

Post by joe_the_user » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 10:12 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #8

It's amazing that these operations and bills are intentionally wrapped in wording that makes them politically untouchable. I can see why lawmakers wouldn't want to investigate this. Who wants to be the congressman/woman that went against Operation Save our children ?

Note that these are operations that haven't waited for any new bills to pass.

As has been debated here previously, these actions are based on importing the draconian "civil forfeiture" device from the drug war into a "war on counterfeiting" or whatever they would call it.

Some have argued that this wasn't a big expansion of US state power.

Indeed, this is not technically an expansion of legal power. It is certainly a expansion of effective powers. It's so not much that someone just put a knife in US rule of law. It's more someone grabbed the wound already opened by the "war on drugs" and ripped it a fair bit wider. I don't know to what degree civil forfeiture" found been found constitutional by the courts. Regardless, in my opinion, it makes a mockery of basic justice in the US (specifically, innocence until proven guilty and the right to face your accusers).

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#122

Post by koko775 » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 10:13 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #109

GrandMasterBirt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a better question: Why is this allowed in the united states? This is an absofuckingloutely clear violation of the due process in our constitution. Yes save the fucking children, but do it properly. We see the abuses that arise from improper giving of power. I guess people are waiting until basically we live in communist russia where you got to bribe cops to not give you speeding ticket, impound your car, an…

What, specifically, is a violation of due process? According to the story, ICE mistakenly included mooo.com in the domains they were seizing. Since that site functions as a DNS provider, the 84,000 subdomains hanging off it had their names resolved to the IP address with the scary law enforcement warning. That's a bad thing, of course, and I'll come back to that aspect of it - but it's not a violation of due process.…

The problem here is absolutely the law. (disclaimer: IANAL)

You're viewing it from a sympathetic light from the start. While one might argue that domain names are property, the seizure of an access point to an online service means that the seizure can effectively act as an injunction against a business.

Moreover, this is publicly-visible "property". It's like going to your house and turning it into a strip club and putting up a sign saying "We employ minors" (regardless of whether you are a strip club or employ minors). Sure, your house still exists, but the address that it used to be at now showcases something that can damage your reputation irreparably.

So while you might consider the actions legal using an interpretation favorable to law enforcement, if you view it from a different lens of "A harmless business owner's livelihood was suspended without warning by ICE and his reputation untruthfully damaged by said action", then it's clear that some level of legal protection (whether it already exists as a part of due process or not) is missing and that ICE was criminally negligent in its handling of the situation. Of course, this is a favorable viewpoint on the other end of the spectrum, as not everyone whose domain was seized is necessarily a business owner or a highly-trafficked site. However, it is a viewpoint that assumes innocence, rather than guilt, before proven otherwise.

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#123

Post by joe_the_user » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 10:26 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #109

GrandMasterBirt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a better question: Why is this allowed in the united states? This is an absofuckingloutely clear violation of the due process in our constitution. Yes save the fucking children, but do it properly. We see the abuses that arise from improper giving of power. I guess people are waiting until basically we live in communist russia where you got to bribe cops to not give you speeding ticket, impound your car, an…

What, specifically, is a violation of due process? According to the story, ICE mistakenly included mooo.com in the domains they were seizing. Since that site functions as a DNS provider, the 84,000 subdomains hanging off it had their names resolved to the IP address with the scary law enforcement warning. That's a bad thing, of course, and I'll come back to that aspect of it - but it's not a violation of due process.…

Civil forfeiture in and of itself makes a mockery of due process.

Indeed, once you make once exception to due process, you can argue ten more through.

Whether civil forfeiture is done by a judge or cop, it involves the justice taking stuff from you without a trial. The final result is the "Judge Dred scenario".

Merely a trial called "United States v. $250,000 in cash" should be a rather bald statement that what is going on is a twisting of concepts to suit bureaucracy.

The reason to avoid search-and-seizure without real due process are fairly simple. One is that such huge powers cause cops to become sloppy (as we've seen). Another is that that a person's stuff is taken and their reputation destroyed, their ability to defend a later trial is effectively destroyed and "you can sue to get it back" is a completely empty claim. A third is that this becomes so easy a method for dealing with criminals that it becomes the method of choice for any criminality and soon you wind with no trials as such - just papers presented to judges.

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#124

Post by defroost » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 10:37 PM UTC

SmokenJoe wrote: post #118

anigbrowl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, specifically, is a violation of due process? According to the story, ICE mistakenly included mooo.com in the domains they were seizing. Since that site functions as a DNS provider, the 84,000 subdomains hanging off it had their names resolved to the IP address with the scary law enforcement warning. That's a bad thing, of course, and I'll come back to that aspect of it - but it's not a violation of due process.…

Please note more words don't ad validity to an argument. Violation of due process is simple to show. There is no warning or process for trial or appeal. The trial is secret and there is as of yer no appeal. This is a simple end run around the court system. I really don't understand the need to complicate things this is outside the intended capacity of the customs. There are still people that don't have their sites ba…

Agreed. I wish I could up you 100 times.

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#125

Post by joe_the_user » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 10:43 PM UTC

joeybaker wrote: post #14

I can think of two questions I'd love to see a journalist track down: 1. What's the legal process for banning a book? 2. If it's not equally as hard (or harder) for the government to take down a website, why?

There are set procedures for banning books in particular.

There have been books banned in the US, however.

US went to court to censor The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence for its use of classified materials.

US FDA went to court and had Wilhelm Reich's books banned as "labels" for his orgone blank. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich

So altogether, the procedure for banning books and banning websites is similar - in the sense that both approaches use "obscure clauses" and twist the meaning of free speech and due-process to suit their goals while covering up their effect.

The one good thing is that free speech still has popular support here.

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#126

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 11:12 PM UTC

koko775 wrote: post #122

anigbrowl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, specifically, is a violation of due process? According to the story, ICE mistakenly included mooo.com in the domains they were seizing. Since that site functions as a DNS provider, the 84,000 subdomains hanging off it had their names resolved to the IP address with the scary law enforcement warning. That's a bad thing, of course, and I'll come back to that aspect of it - but it's not a violation of due process.…

The problem here is absolutely the law. (disclaimer: IANAL) You're viewing it from a sympathetic light from the start. While one might argue that domain names are property, the seizure of an access point to an online service means that the seizure can effectively act as an injunction against a business. Moreover, this is publicly-visible "property". It's like going to your house and turning it into a strip club and p…

I'm confused. I spent 3 of the last 4 paragraphs talking about the potentially life-changing consequences for all those website owners whose domains were mistakenly tagged with child porn warnings, and why I expected it to result in a big class action lawsuit, and how irresponsible and unacceptable it was for ICE to make such a mistake. Did you just not read that part? I know I'm long-winded, but you're basically agreeing with 95% of what I wrote.

Where we differ is that I'm saying the seizure warrant and the legal procedure before and after are OK. Most of the time they work as intended. The court didn't issue a warrant for the shutdown of 84,000 subdomains due to laziness or ignorance on the part of law enforcement or the judge. They issued a warrant for 8 or 10 specific domains, and when it was executed someone accidentally ran the same process on mooo.com, which was never included in the warrant to begin with (unless I am very badly mistaken, in which case I'll eat humble pie when that comes to light).

The website owners whose reputations and blood pressure were put at such grave risk have a claim on ICE for the needless trouble they were caused. Which will get resolved in a court. I appreciate that you would like to see someone prosecuted for criminal negligence, but that usually happens only in cases involving immediate loss of life.

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#127

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 11:43 PM UTC

SmokenJoe wrote: post #118

anigbrowl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, specifically, is a violation of due process? According to the story, ICE mistakenly included mooo.com in the domains they were seizing. Since that site functions as a DNS provider, the 84,000 subdomains hanging off it had their names resolved to the IP address with the scary law enforcement warning. That's a bad thing, of course, and I'll come back to that aspect of it - but it's not a violation of due process.…

Please note more words don't ad validity to an argument. Violation of due process is simple to show. There is no warning or process for trial or appeal. The trial is secret and there is as of yer no appeal. This is a simple end run around the court system. I really don't understand the need to complicate things this is outside the intended capacity of the customs. There are still people that don't have their sites ba…

Please note more words don't ad validity to an argument. Violation of due process is simple to show. There is no warning or process for trial or appeal. The trial is secret and there is as of yer no appeal. This is a simple end run around the court system.

If they're secret, how is it that I can see customs-related asset forfeiture cases on the court calendar, and that they're open to the public?

Here's the annual report/audit for last year on the US treasury asset forfeiture account (where all the money ends up when there's money involved): http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/terrorist-illicit-fi...

And here's an easily readable article on the legal concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_rem_jurisdiction The customs service has had powers like this since 1799.

edit: I forgot to mention that of course the website owners who were affected can sue the government individually or via a class action. I'd be very surprised if they didn't; I'm sure there are attorneys who specialize in such things busy typing articles about it right now, in case any of the persons affected are wondering who would be able to advise them on the subject.

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#128

Post by jdp23 » Thu, Feb 17, 2011, 12:02 AM UTC

jdp23 wrote: post #84

jdp23 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or the PATRIOT Act ...

Thanks everybody for the upvotes! For the latest on the PATRIOT Act, please see http://bit.ly/feb16news

It's interesting that this was downvoted while the parent was upvoted. My initial reaction is that people on Hacker News react positively when somebody makes a snarky remark about the PATRIOT Act, but react negatively when told how they can make a difference. Or is there some other explanation?

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#129

Post by bugsy » Thu, Feb 17, 2011, 12:20 AM UTC

Wow, it's not just that they shut them down, but the US government put a big label on all the sites for all the users to see which basically says it was a child porn site, even though it wasn't, it was all some sort of error and most of the sites were small business sites doing normal ordinary things.

Their customers are going to assume that the government would have done some sort of investigation, got a warrant, there was a trial, etc, so they will believe that the claims are true. Some people might be angry enough that they track down the owners of the site or business and kill them.

What has happened is criminally negligent and outrageously dangerous. But the out of control government is not responsible for any of its actions, therefore these abuses will not only continue, but get worse.

Re: U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’

#130

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Feb 17, 2011, 12:24 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #123

anigbrowl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, specifically, is a violation of due process? According to the story, ICE mistakenly included mooo.com in the domains they were seizing. Since that site functions as a DNS provider, the 84,000 subdomains hanging off it had their names resolved to the IP address with the scary law enforcement warning. That's a bad thing, of course, and I'll come back to that aspect of it - but it's not a violation of due process.…

Civil forfeiture in and of itself makes a mockery of due process. Indeed, once you make once exception to due process, you can argue ten more through. Whether civil forfeiture is done by a judge or cop, it involves the justice taking stuff from you without a trial . The final result is the "Judge Dred scenario". Merely a trial called "United States v. $250,000 in cash" should be a rather bald statement that what is g…

So basically you want to hold the trial before any warrants are issued.

Whether civil forfeiture is done by a judge or cop, it involves the justice taking stuff from you without a trial.

This is simply not true. Here's a recent case where the government's claim was rejected and it was ordered to return the seized money to the owner, plus legal costs: http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3005668348588117...