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Old 2010-07-17, 14:11   Link #29
SeijiSensei
AS Oji-kun
 
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Age: 74
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaijo View Post
There still is a major problem here. The government said "Do this" and it was done, with no real reason given. That's how it works in dictatorships, but not how it's supposed to work here. If you have something seized, you're supposed to be told why, and be given a chance to fight it. You're supposed to be able to see the evidence against you, and it doesn't look like the case here.
You don't know what reasons were given to BurstNet. It's their server, not the lessor's. If he owned the server, the issues might be different. But the leased server contained material that did not comply with the contract he signed with the provider, and when asked to take it down, the provider did so.

You also don't know whether they brought a court order.

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In short, child pornography and terrorism are the new boogymen.
I'm pretty much of a free-speech absolutist, especially compared to most Americans, but these are complex issues. Let's start with child porn. I'm totally opposed to any attempt to classify drawn materials as obscene, but real child porn relies on the abuse of real children. I think that's wrong, and I support the efforts of law enforcement to try and end the practice. I'd prefer that the authorities make greater efforts to stop the abuse itself, but I do think distribution of real child porn should be illegal and agree we should stop such distribution if possible. I also think law enforcement spends too much time on the recipients of these materials and too little on the producers.

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Would it have sounded better if they said, "We're seizing this because there is some pinko-commie material on it" ? Or perhaps "We're seizing this farm because the owner is a witch!"
Of course not. But you don't really know what was on the server, do you?

If you want to protect your free speech rights, you need to operate your own server, and you need to house it somewhere other than a hosting provider. If someone knocked on my door tomorrow morning and told me to take down the web server operating in my back room, I'd expect to see a warrant, and I'd call my attorney before complying. In fact I've had some conversations with friends and colleagues who are attorneys about the circumstances under which materials might be confiscated. (No, I'm no engaged in illegal activities, but I do host some materials that might be subject to subpoena in a civil action.) I'd probably also want to have at least two Internet connections in case one was taken down before my attorney could intervene.

There are two centures of jurisprudence concerning the "search and seizure" provisions of the Fourth Amendment. How we adapt those concepts to the virtual world is an intriguing question, but it's going to take another decade at least before potentially relevant cases work their way through the courts. There is a lot of law about whether something in your home has more protection than something in your office, and whether something you've stored in a third-party location qualifies for constitutional protections. Materials stored in safe deposit boxes, to take an analogous physical container to a leased server, don't have the same constitutional protections as material stored in your home or on your person.

Quote:
"SeijiSensei, we, the government say you are a pedophile/child pornographer/terrorist/commie/witch and thus are taking your stuff away from you. Oh, and you can't see the evidence or reasons why."
I don't like the notification aspects of the PATRIOT Act, either, and I'd like to see them overturned. At some point either Congress will revoke these provisions of the law, or they will be subject to judicial review and hopefully ruled as unconstitutional.

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If there was child porn on it, they could have requested info on the person who owned the blog and had that one blog taken down and the material deleted. Or several blogs. But what possible reason could there be to take down the whole lot and remain secret?

State secrets? Again, they can request that the blogs holding them get taken down. Or the people who own those blogs tracked back to the owners physical location.
Because law enforcement takes a very hands-on approach to these situations. They're primarily concerned about the physical device, not the virtual servers it might contain. Let's take your approach. The FBI show up and ask the provider to take down just one of the 73,000 blogs. First, the ISP itself isn't dealing with the end-users, they're leasing a server to someone under contract. So they'd need to figure out how the information is stored on the lessor's server (including dealing with whatever encryption might be in use), then figure out which materials need to be removed, and then do so. Do you think that's likely in practice compared to pulling the plug on the box and handing it over for forensic examination? There could be a lot of other information on that server that might be pertinent to the investigation as well, like accounting data that might point to the identification and arrest of the person(s) who posted the material.

Do you expect them to notify the lessor first? What if he or she is complicit in the alleged illegal activity and not simply being exploited as a passive entity?

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Suppose a blog had info on a politician doing something illegal? Shut down the whole lot of them so no one knows why, and the information is buried.
Do you really think that in a case like this there wouldn't be other copies of the material on other servers or in desk drawers or safe deposit boxes?
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