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

[Ohio Joe]

"The US Government has yet again shuttered several domain names this week. The Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE office proudly announced that they had seized domains related to counterfeit goods and child pornography. What they failed to mention, however, is that one of the targeted domains belongs to a free DNS provider, and that 84,000 websites were wrongfully accused of links to child pornography crimes.

As part of “Operation Save Our Children” ICE’s Cyber Crimes Center has again seized several domain names, but not without making a huge error. Last Friday, thousands of site owners were surprised by a rather worrying banner that was placed on their domain.

“Advertisement, distribution, transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography constitute federal crimes that carry penalties for first time offenders of up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution,” was the worrying message they read on their websites."

http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-shuts-down-84000-websites-by-mistake-110216/

oops, sorry, did not mean to label you as a child porn site. Sheesh.

I'm all for shutting down child porn sites but I am bothered by the govt's seizing sites without any real due process being allowed. There does not appear to be any recourse for sites that are seized. Just get a judge to sign off on a warrant and poof, sites gone.

[Curmudgeoness]

1. Testing, one two three. nt

[razorman]

3. This seems very much like a test run to me.

[ixion]

2. This is why there must be due process and the Rule of Law

because otherwise, it's tyranny.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. It is tyranny. Oh sorry, it was a mistake. They are watching the world,

and they are getting scared. They had better be afraid. And shutting down the internet will not solve their problems. I hope that they realize that will just piss us off more.