U.S. Gets In on Censorship Action
December 6th, 2010Via: Info/Law:
The U.S. government is grabbing domain names to prevent users from reaching content it views as illegal. Not content that has been adjudicated illegal, as far as we know – content that is alleged to be illegal. To content owners, and probably to ICE, it looks only natural that we’d prevent people from reaching information they view as stolen, or counterfeit. But it’s natural to China to censor human rights sites. Or Wikileaks, for that matter. Legitimacy in information control on-line rests, I’ve argued, on being open, transparent, narrow, and accountable. The problem here is twofold: narrowness, and accountability. First, the accountability analysis looks to the procedures by which censorship is carried out. Given that the government can seize sites without notice, and with a showing only in an ex parte hearing (to obtain a warrant), this is problematic in this case. Moreover, the government gets the benefit of the doubt: if they make a mistake, well, too bad for the domain name owner, whose URL is out of commission until there’s a hearing. Second, these seizures aren’t narrow. They’re both overbroad and underbroad. The domain name seizures are underbroad because, surprise surprise, there are more than 82 sites out there offering copyrighted content. They’re overbroad because seizing a domain name blocks licit along with illicit content. It fails to distinguish between content used in an infringing way, and content in a lawful way (such as fair use).
