Tag Archives: Internet

HIDE YOUR SERVER, YOU MAY BE NEXT

Politico

The federal government has seized the Web addresses of 10 websites that allegedly live stream sporting and pay-per-view events online, shutting them down just days before one of the biggest televised sporting events of the year: the Super Bowl.

The U. S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York, working in conjunction with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, seized the Web addresses Tuesday.

So that’s how they do it; they disable the addresses. Never mind the headline; they don’t even need to know where your server is.

Today’s action by the Fed may have a certain justification. It would appear it does. But it gives one a bit of a jolt to discover how easy it is for the government to shut down selected internet traffic. There has been no trial, there was no forewarning. According to what information is available this is a pre-emptive move. The website operators are expected to do something that could be deemed illegal if their anticipated acts were challenged in court and if they lost the challenge.

Scary, isn’t it.

INTERNET COMES UNDER SERIOUS ATTACK

Tomorrow morning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will [take] an unprecedented step to expand government’s reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings. In doing so, the agency will circumvent Congress and disregard a recent court ruling.

Thus begins the lead article from today’s Wall Street Journal. As though that weren’t enough, we find these other recent headlines as well.

New UN committee could hand governments internet control

Who Will Control the Internet?

Venezuela’s Chavez calls for internet controls

The First Amendment, protecting freedom of speech, came into effect on December 15, 1791. Radio did not come until 115 years later, television many years after that. Yet these new media were always considered part of the Fourth Estate, more commonly known as “the press”. The internet is no less than the latest iteration of journalistic media and should be treated as such. It must and it will remain open in the free world. It is too big to fail.