USA thinks it has the power to take down any .com or .org domain
Anyone else (especially outside the USA) a bit bothered by this?
the seizure of popular cyberlocker Megaupload demonstrates that, even without controversial new legislation, our [USA, sic] government already has extraordinarily broad powers to take down U.S.-registered websites (including any site in the .com and .org domains) before anyone has been tried for illegal conduct, let alone convicted.
The Megaupload indictment suggests that the U.S. government considers a wide array of cyberlocker business practices to be ipso facto evidence of criminal intentions, even though there are arguably legitimate reasons for many of them. Yet the government doesn’t think it has to wait for a trial, or give the folks who run a site an opportunity to explain their practices, before seizing an entire domain—which would be an effective death sentence for many startups.
seeAlso
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/fbi-reminds-us-government-already-has-megapower-to-take-down-websites/
and, yes, they do already have that power. Where's the legal action (for example) fighting this takedown? Where are the protests from the general public, never mind governments?
As I've said elsewhere, the internet is everywhere and nowhere, but it always goes through the USA at some stage, which always seems to give the USAians the impression that they can do whatever they like with stuff to do with the internet.
Meanwhile it looks like Megavideo and the planned Megabox music distribution system were the real things that the MPAA/RIAA didn't like. We're just collateral damage.
it's worth pointing out that this is not a case about some totally foreign company just minding its business in Hong Kong before being randomly swept up to answer to US law. Like it or loathe it, countries have been going after foreigners who violate local ordinances at least since the famous French case against Yahoo in 2000. And it's not going to change anytime soon.
What angers me and just re-inforces my anti-american prejudices is the assumption that because the USA has some stupid laws and processes and because an individual may have broken them in a way that happened on US soil, it's perfectly OK to pursue them wherever they are in the world and regardless of collateral damage. That's cultural imperialism and we should rail against it.