Source: Prison PlanetPaul Joseph Watson
In a chilling illustration of how far Internet censorship has advanced,
the Department of Homeland Security seized a popular music blog and shut
down the website for over a year on charges it now admits were
completely false.
The website in question – www.dajaz1.com – was not some obscure, dubious blog – it was a popular platform for DJ’s that was once featured on MTV.
“Around Thanksgiving 2010, the Department of Homeland Security seized
more than 70 domains with no trial, accusing them of copyright
infringement,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
Dajaz1.com was caught in the dragnet after DHS claimed four songs
posted on the website were used without permission, when in fact the
musicians and publicists concerned had sent the tracks directly to
Dajaz1 with express authorization.
That didn’t stop Homeland Security from seizing and shutting down the
blog for over a year, violating the law by refusing to tell its owner
why the website was taken and subsequently missing the 90 day deadline
for explaining why the owner should forfeit the property permanently.
“Or at least that’s what the owner assumed when he heard nothing. Then the court told him that the government got an extension.”
“But the owner couldn’t see the extension because all the filings in
the case were sealed, and was not allowed to testify in court to ask for
his property back, says TechDirt.”
The saga finally came to a close when the owner was handed back control of the website only yesterday.
The lesson to take from this is that Homeland Security can now just
claim your website contains copyrighted material with no evidence
whatsoever and seize it without any recourse.
“This whole thing has been a disgrace by the US government, starting
with a bogus seizure, improper and illegal censorship, followed by
denial of due process and unnecessary secrecy,” reports TechDirt.
The DHS has already seized dozens of websites
merely for linking to copyrighted material, despite the fact that such
material isn’t even hosted on the website itself, a process the
Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized as, “Blunt instruments
that cause unacceptable collateral damage to free speech rights.”
The targeted website, now finally back in the hands of its rightful
owner, has become a poster child for the anti-Internet censorship
movement. The front page of the site urges readers to oppose the Protect
IP Act, legislation that will give the government even more power to
block websites by creating an official blacklist.
As we reported back in October,
the bill that has attracted bi-partisan support in the House will force
Internet Service Providers to create a list of banned websites and
prevent their users from accessing the sites, creating a Chinese-style
‘ban list’ that could easily be abused to silence free speech. Lawmakers
like Senator Joe Lieberman have teamed up with Department of Homeland
Security officials to push draconian legislation in an effort to mimic the Communist Chinese system of policing the Internet.
“A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable
measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within
the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof)
that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the
domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from
resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address,” states the
bill.
Given the fact that the U.S. government is now ordering You Tube to remove videos that contain “government criticism,”
the potential for this legislation to be abused to silence political
free speech is clear. Add to that the fact that Verisign, the global
authority over all .com domain names, is demanding the power to
terminate websites deemed “abusive” when ordered to by government
without a court order or any kind of oversight whatsoever, and the
threat to web freedom is clear.
