Feds Mistakenly Shut Down Popular Blog For Over A Year

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111208/08225217010/breaking-news-feds-falsely-censor-popular-blog-over-year-deny-all-due-process-hide-all-details.shtml

by taylorbuley • 15 years ago

560 121 15 years ago

techdirt.com

lhnn3• 15 years ago

Someday, perhaps populists and socialists will realize that the very structure of American government combined with our culture leads to complete incompetence in government. We are better off with every power we take away from them.

wpietri3• 15 years ago

Or could it be that it's exactly this sort of reflexive government-bashing that makes it easy for the general public to elect fools and charlatans? After all, if government is the problem, why would people bother electing representatives who take governing seriously? Heck of a job, Brownie.

Regardless, I think your thesis is false. A lot of the powers we've taken away from government lately (regulation of financial services, regulation of financial markets, regulation of campaign contributions) have made us worse off, and specifically have made it easier for RIAA to buy legislation like this.

SkyMarshal• 15 years ago

Indeed. We've been giving the US government all the wrong powers, and stripping it of all the right ones. Heckuvajob, us.

kiba• 15 years ago

The current form of government allows people to elect charlatans and fools. That's not because the population is stupid. On the contrary, a democratic system required the population to be unusually educated & informed, while always deciding to vote in our long-term interest. In other words, the democratic system requires the impossible.

Our civilization relies on extreme specialization and deep division of labor, not that everyone knows everything.

Regulatory capture means that regulatory framework aren't necessary free of corruption. It just means we ought to be smarter how we devise regulations or lack thereof, as sometime doing nothing is better than corporations gaining control of the law.

If anything, the government are in bed with the bankers.

CWuestefeld8• 15 years ago

regulation of financial services, regulation of financial markets

This isn't going to be rehashing the Glass-Steagall myth, is it? See, e.g., [1]

regulation of campaign contributions

Isn't this in itself a repudiation of democracy? We're not talking here about Blagojevich-style corruption in the election process. If you're worrying about campaign contributions, that boils down to how much advertising a campaign can buy. If you're worried about a candidate advertising a lot, that's pretty much a vote of no-confidence in your fellow Americans' ability to weigh options and vote rationally.

Also, if you're one of those people horrified that corporations can now contribute to campaigns, can you tell me where the line should be drawn? I'm sure you don't object to my right to contribute to a campaign, nor my right to pool money with a friend to do so. If two of us can do so, why not, say, my whole club (e.g., my hypothetical flying club wants to have elected the guy who promises to grant a permit to expand the airport in town)? As this scales up, at some point we need a formal structure to organize things, which is legally recognized by a corporation; why can't my incorporated flying club make a contribution?

[1] http://blog.heritage.org/2008/09/22/the-glass-steagall-myth/

sbov• 15 years ago

The real problem is the government is afraid to police the markets like they police the people. There are all sorts of things that are legal for people to do absent the harm of others. However, when you throw in harm to others in there, you may become criminally liable for your otherwise legal actions - I'm speaking of negligence. This is what's missing. Without this concept, the government will always be several steps behind the market "innovators".

lhnn3• 15 years ago

The authority we grant to the government to make laws that regulate financial markets, currencies, and (you wish) campaign contributions gives them the authority to make bullshit laws sponsored by the RIAA. A public that isn't engaged with the political process because our central bureaucracy is to distant to interact with personally: THAT'S why we have this trash happening today.

Glass-Steagal would only be good because it keeps FDIC-insured money from being used for gambling, which is what securities trading is. One could argue we don't need FDIC insurance, and in fact, we shouldn't have regulation and monopoly of currency by the government.

As far as campaign contribution regulation, it's a violation of free speech to tell me how I can spend my money to talk. I can go on if you really care to know how CFR is a bad idea.

I want this country to "not suck" and respect the freedoms of its citizens. Several simple, yet fundamental things need to change:

-Repeal the 17th amendment -Our voting system for the legislature -The scope of federal government needs drastically reduced.

andylei• 15 years ago

this type of thinking is just lazy. the government did something bad? government can't work! take away as many powers as possible!

or maybe, we need to figure out a good solution. problem is, that's not easy and requires domain knowledge and critical thinking. its a lot easier just to say, well i have this one solution that will solve all the problems.

rhizome9• 15 years ago

That, and half of US political society wants to murder the entire concept of government.

Androsynth• 15 years ago

Historically speaking, as governments and politicians gain more central power, they tend to get more corrupt. As governments get more corrupt, they forcefully accumulate more central power. It is a positive feedback loop.

emmett• 15 years ago

This kind of political bombast doesn't belong on Hacker News. Please don't drag us into a war of the Blues and the Greens.

lhnn3• 15 years ago

Frank discussion on the failure of powerful central government in America is appropriate when it's central to the topic that is posted. The fact that the US government did this, for a year, without any backlash, is a symbol of how far gone the US government is.

phillmv• 15 years ago

Get your memes right.

This is an example of government corporatism, acting at the behest of a single entity.

Socialists are supposed to hate business, right?

eykanal• 15 years ago

The techdirt article repeatedly makes reference to seizure laws as they apply to confiscated PROPERTY. Is there legal precedence for the blog to immediately assume that such laws apply to digital domains, where nothing physical was confiscated?

Natsu2• 15 years ago

Well, what law do you think the government invoked and why?

Litigating an entire case ex parte and sealing the record so that the accused never even finds out what they were accused of should be quite troubling to anyone who believes in due process.

VladRussian• 15 years ago

>Litigating an entire case ex parte and sealing the record so that the accused never even finds out what they were accused of should be quite troubling to anyone who believes in due process.

seems like definition of due process has been changed, secretly to avoid unnecessary disturbance to the public peace and enjoyment.

ImprovedSilence• 15 years ago

Digital media is not physical property, but i can still download a song and be accused of stealing somebody's property.

chc3• 15 years ago

Legally speaking, no, you can't. If you download a song illegally, you might be accused of copyright infringement, which ironically carries stiffer penalties than just stealing the record would in many cases, but you will not be charged with theft unless they also suspect you stole something physical.

drunkpotato• 15 years ago

Assuming you meant convicted of stealing, and not accused (you can always be accused of doing anything): that hasn't been established. What has been established is that you can upload a song and be sued for violating someone else's copyright.

Natsu2• 15 years ago

The domain wasn't copied, downloaded, streamed, remixed, tweeted, emailed, torrented or archived.

The domain was taken by ICE and its owner was deprived of any use of it, all while it hosted an image proclaiming the former owner to be a criminal of some sort.

timwiseman• 15 years ago

A domain name is property, even if it is not physical. For that matter, if the contents of a bank account are seized, nothing physical moves, but it is still certainly property. A future (as opposed to possessory) interest in land is property that can be seized, sold, and used as collateral, but it does not physically exist either (even if that one is tied to something that does physically exist).

In short, a thing does not need to be tangible for it to be property.

rkudeshi• 15 years ago

If you're not familiar with hip-hop music blogs like the one cited in the article, please visit http://nahright.com or http://missinfo.tv to get a better idea of what they look like (since dajaz1.com doesn't seem to be back up yet, understandably).

Almost every track posted to sites like these are released by the artists themselves (or by their labels). Many hip-hop blogs (including the two I linked) will not post songs if they weren't legitimately authorized by the artists (e.g. if a track was stolen and leaked on the web).

Something you won't ever see are full albums. These sites aren't designed to replace album sales, they actually encourage them. They will only link to individual songs or freely released mixtapes.

(Also, you'll note that a lot of the music posted is from unsigned artists. A lot of newer rappers actually rose to prominence after having their music posted on these sites.)

There are many, many sites that willingly infringe on copyright and the government has good reason for shutting down. This was not one of them.

PS. For more information on how music gets released to these blogs, read this excellent piece, also by Techdirt:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101222/02112912376/more-b...

smokeyj• 15 years ago

> There are many, many sites that willingly infringe on copyright and the government has good reason for shutting down.

Or maybe, the notion of copyright police is stupid. Have we caught all the bad-guys and evil-doers in this world, and all that's left is COPYRIGHT abuse? I mean, what about all those terrorists who hate us for our freedom. Yet, we have enough resources left over to shut down some poor dudes blog? I feel safer all-ready!

hamoid• 15 years ago

If terrorists hate you for your freedom, maybe that's the reason why your government is getting rid of them.

Getting rid of the freedoms, I mean. Then the terrorist will not have a reason to hate you anymore.

Sorry for the sarcasm.

wmf2• 15 years ago

Almost every track posted to sites like these are released by the artists themselves (or by their labels).

How would an outside copyright enforcer know that? In a world where companies send takedowns to YouTube over videos that they uploaded, it seems like it's not enough to be legal — sites need a way to prove that they're posing authorized content.

RexRollman• 15 years ago

The burden of proof needs to be on the ones complaining, the MPAA and the RIAA, not the site (who may or may not be innocent).

rhizome9• 15 years ago

How would an outside copyright enforcer know that?

Well, for one, there is no such thing as "an outside copyright enforcer." The only people allowed to complain at all about a song's presence on a website are the people who own the copyright. That's it.

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

Assumption of innocence is the de facto state for all crimes.

nikatwork• 15 years ago

I'm going to seize your mobile phone for a year. See, it has some music on it, and there's no way for me to know that you legally bought every song.

beernutz• 15 years ago

You know I read all these comments about how this is just incompetence, but I think it smells like payback for something. How interesting that it was all filed under seal. That speaks to intent to me more strongly than anything else.

How doing all this is legal is still beyond me. I hope someone SOMEWHERE is planning to sue the living crap out of these asshats.

maeon32• 15 years ago

Is there any case in the history of America where the FBI was found to be corrupt or in violation of human rights? What would it take? If the FBI starts murdering people and taking them away in the night, is there a process to check that power?

wisty• 15 years ago

Weird, the way the government said they had a secret court extension, but couldn't even give a redacted copy. It almost sounds like they didn't have a court extension, and were lying that they did, and eventually had to hand the domain back out of sheer embarrassment.

angelbob• 15 years ago

Sure. Usually if you give embarrassing people the runaround, they eventually go away.

It was, admittedly, way too optimistic for the government to assume every seized domain would work this way. But for them to assume this one specific one would work that way is actually depressingly likely.

Governments illegally seize stuff all the time, especially when investigating anything drug-related. They can seize and auction off your stuff basically even on suspicion of it being bought with drug money.

What happens if it wasn't? Well, they owe you money back if your lawyer is good enough to make that happen.

einhverfr5• 15 years ago

My reading was "they lied. They never planned to do anything."

I dunno, if it was my site, I would ask that my lawyer sue to the government to get the site back, and make the government prove that another judge was already handling it.

speleding2• 15 years ago

IANAL, but this sounds like they didn't have a very good lawyer.

davidu3• 15 years ago

Not the case. Andrew Bridges was at the Stanford Law Center's SOPA talk last night. He knows his law inside and out and was all over this. The government messed up here and tried to bury it. Because he didn't go away that this is coming out.

speleding2• 15 years ago

I'm not sure if I'm happy to hear he is indeed good. That is even more troubling.

I would expect lawyers to have some kind of recourse if things obviously are not going the way the law intended them to, instead of simply getting "no" for an answer. But IANAL.

aero142• 15 years ago

What I don't understand is why a meeting with the government lawyer was the final action and why what they say matters? What prevents the blog owner from filing a suit to get the property returned? The government failed to provide proof that they were legally in possession of the property. File a suit to get the property back and then they have to produce the legal order allowing them to keep it. I know money might be a major factor in this but the article's author acts like there was nothing else that could have been done.

ajross• 15 years ago

It seems like lawsuits work on about a ~1 year latency scale too, so I don't see how that would improve the situation. The site owner had counsel, and they chose the best mechanism they could see to get the result they wanted. And ultimately they did. The courts don't work quickly, sadly.

zecho• 15 years ago

There's also a good chance that after the lawyer was first stonewalled, he saw a bigger lawsuit opportunity down the road if it persisted. And it did. I still expect civil action against the government to be on the way.

ck2• 15 years ago

And remember, there is a document advising you might be a terrorist if you have more than seven days of food onhand.

Oh that guideline would never be abused, would it?

cbr• 15 years ago

[citation needed]

Brief searching online only turns up people talking about this document, but I can't seem to find it. Are you sure it exists?

jleader3• 15 years ago

That's one of the less obvious reasons that secret proceedings, secret rules, and the like are bad. They make it harder to discredit conspiracy theorists. "Well, if they kept the seizure proceedings secret for a year, maybe the seven days of food rule is secret too".

unreal37• 15 years ago

Serious question. This article seems to be about censorship and the First Amendment. The opening paragraph equates this to a magazine being shut down and the printing presses seized. But I don't think this hip-hop blog was saying something the government wanted to stop. I don't get why the prevalent "bad thing" the government did is being called censorship.

Isn't the real story the government put a company out of business for no reason? They took a "top 10" website in a category and shut it down for a year, allowing their competitors an unfair advantage. No due process, no communication, not even a case number. They picked a random company and put it out of business.

I guess that's not protected by the constitution.

wanorris• 15 years ago

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

U.S. Constitution, 5th Amendment

dpe82• 15 years ago

We abandoned the plain meaning of the constitution a long, long time ago.

Sadly.

jleader3• 15 years ago

The point is that under the First Amendment, the government shouldn't be able to do this for any reason (aside from the usual "fire in a crowded theater" or "disclosing state secrets" kinds of exceptions). Basically, if only "speech criticizing the government" were protected by the First Amendment, then the government could just claim "but this wasn't really criticism". So the Founders made the First Amendment broader than that.

And under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, taking away property without due process is forbidden.

zipdog• 15 years ago

A few years I heard a radio interview with a prominent rap artist (I forgot who) who said something like:

There's some evidence around that the government does consider rap and hip-hop to be, in a variety of cases, a potential threat on the order of political speech. In particular, a number of artists have ongoing files with the FBI.

The supposed reason is that if you had to pick one artform with the highest potential to start widespread political action in a short time, it would probably be music. And one of the demographics that presents a significant potential political threat to established order (ie large-scale city riots) it is the audience for rap and hip hop.

brc• 15 years ago

It's obvious to me that as time goes by, governments are going to want to shut down more and more internet services for whatever reason.

It seems to me that the thing that is needed most is an even-more distributed internet system, so that things like DNS and ISPs cannot be controlled by governments.

A peer-to-peer DNS system and someway of easily setting yourself up as an ISP would mean that this type of intervention would be impossible.

kinghajj• 15 years ago

P2P DNS exists. One implementation is Namecoin. I've heard of ideas of making a large mesh network with people's Wi-Fi routers, but there are many technical hurdles to overcome there, though it should be workable, if excruciatingly slow.

DasIch3• 15 years ago

Even if you find a solution at the DNS level, the government will just go a level deeper.

There are really not that many ISPs and fewer yet you would have to control.

zmmmmm• 15 years ago

It always amazes me how quickly abuses of power seem to occur once such power is enabled. I always expect that at first the recipients of the power will be very cautious, bound by the social norms and expectations set by the previous situation, and it will take many years or even decades for the abuses we complain about to actually happen. However it doesn't seem to work like that. Abuses seem to happen almost immediately the minute it is possible for them to occur.

It's almost comforting in a way - at least truly terrible laws don't just slip in unnoticed and get established without us noticing. Their bad effects get manifested almost straight away.

TillE• 15 years ago

> Their bad effects get manifested almost straight away.

And then nothing changes anyway. Telecoms immunized, torturers not prosecuted, etc. Yay?

gameshot911• 15 years ago

The system is so very large, and it only takes one person to make one decision - in this case, a single federal prosecutor or his boss who decided he wanted to charge this case - to decide to utilize their power. You don't hear about the thousands of other prosecutors who use appropriate discretion, and don't file inappropriate charges/motions.

khafra2• 15 years ago

If the system were constructed such that it took two persons to make the decision to commit an abuse of power, perhaps it wouldn't be such an abusive system.

cookiecaper• 15 years ago

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.

davidu3• 15 years ago

This is outrageous. If you aren't doing something about it, you are tacitly approving of it.

You could, quite literally, have your domain taken away tomorrow.

loopdoend• 15 years ago

Mistakenly implies that it wasn't a direct result of policy and an inherently malicious protocol of operations. This, in my opinion, was not a mistake, but rather the result of systemic incompetence and technical illiteracy on the part of the US government. The ladder climbers that pulled this off are headed straight to a nice private job just as soon as they get done making a name for themselves.

click170• 15 years ago

And people wonder why we have no faith in The System..

dshanahan2• 15 years ago

This happened in a different way to me. They didn't take my domain; they threatened my ISP and they deleted everything on my domain, include six other sites that lived there - the music blog was a subdomain.

The thing I couldn't believe was that I'd never posted a track I hadn't gotten approved by the artist; I'd estimate 70% was sent to me by promoters, artists, or the label themselves. If it wasn't, it was likely found on another blog and I only let readers download content that was available for free from the artist themselves.

Totally ridiculous. Trying to get a response for their grounds was impossible, and I eventually had to switch ISPs and rebuild all my sites.

felipeota• 15 years ago

That's awful. What kind of response did you get when trying to prove them wrong? Did you talk only to your ISP or someone from the government?

dshanahan2• 15 years ago

Yeah, it was a pretty huge pain in the ass. I hammered the CEO of the ISP and he gave me some boiler plate response. Honestly, I'm running a startup and the music blog is a fun side project so I didn't pursue it. I sent word to some of the other bloggers that I know have high traffic like I did and that I know share downloadable content. I wanted to know if I was behaving differently than they were, and I wasn't. They were all pretty nervous about the whole thing.

Music blogger in general are huge proponents of driving money to artists; either by putting them on the map or literally driving sales. If you're lucky enough to collect attention on the aggregators you can be pretty sure that your posts will get traffic, so finding a young band with little exposure is hugely gratifying.

Then the record label gorilla lawyers get in the way. Really sad state of affairs.

neilparikh• 15 years ago

The right to innocence until proven given guilty is quite fundamental to our legal system, and laws like SOPA and Protect IP go against that very ideal. Right now these laws that take away these fundamental freedoms are only in the copyright domain, but if these laws stand, I'm assuming they could be used as a precedent and used to justify other laws that take away the presumption of innocence. I'm not a lawyer, but this is what these laws seem to be heading towards.

crististm• 15 years ago

I'd like to see a peer-2-peer DNS system take over. Now go and shut this down.

nidennet• 15 years ago

I am really shocked and disturbed by this article. From reading it I believe that this is a total violation of the trust towards the Government and the whole legal system.

The lack of due process is what is most disturbing. Someone (the Government in this case) can accuse one of a crime, but they have to prove it. Hijacking a domain and not producing evidence on why it was hijacked and not following the proper procedure which is outlined by the law and finally hiding behind the Government blanket of 'no' is simply wrong and must not be allowed to happen again.

To me this read as abuse of power by certain employees of the Government. Not allowing due process is illegal and I hope that Dajaz1's lawyers will get to the bottom of this.

Nelson69• 15 years ago

Is there a complete lack of quotes on the record in that article? I see the lawyer's name for dajaz1.com but no quotes from him, no owner is named, no quotes from him... Just sayin'.

Everything is not right here. This is pretty basic stuff though, an accused man deserves to face his accusers, who is accused? The whole story is just better when there is an actual victim of the government tyranny. I expect it has something to do with payola but .... the feds will never defend themselves and who knows how much traffic this site is going to get now.

mariuolo• 15 years ago

"Mistakenly"?

Feds Mistakenly Shut Down Popular Blog For Over A Year

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