Government shuts down 84,000 internet sites in search of porn that wasn’t there

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Speaking of the internet, how much government control do we want?  Regulating unethical business practices is one thing, but should the government be allowed to shut down your website based on a rumor?

The United States is unique in that religion plays a huge role in government, despite the constitution.  What is pornography in America may not be considered so in France, or other foreign countries, where governments are far more secular, and thus more liberal, than in the U.S..  In my humble opinion we have gone to the extreme when it comes to this “decency” nonsense.

I saw a news clip several weeks ago that showed school children visiting a local dairy farm.  The network actually blurred the animals udders, anus, and in the case of the bulls, their penises.  Don’t you think that is a little much?

I like the TV show Southland, but as you would expect from cops on the street the language can get rough, just like those same streets.  Naturally the censors, pandering to the religious right, bleep out anything that might be construed as cursing, including words like “damn.”  Don’t you think that is a little much?

Here is the full story from The Daily Tech:

In evidence of the dangers of the U.S. government’s increasing “kill switch” powers regarding web servers inside the U.S., the Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE last week essentially shut down 84,000 sites in a case of mistaken identity.

The shutdowns targeted mooo.com, the most popular shared domain at free web service provider FreeDNS.  FreeDNS is a free domain service that is immensely popular among file sharers, blogs, small businesses, and other independent operators.  Its homepage is afraid.org.

With the mooo.com shutdown last Friday, the ICE accidentally shut down 84,000 subdomain pages.  The pages were all redirected to a banner that stated “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.”

The court order to shut down and redirect the sites was granted via a seizure warrant from a District Court.  The warrant was executed as part of the DHS ICE team’s “Operation Save Our Children“.

The key problem is that none of the sites thus identified under the mooo.com superdomain had child porn on them.  They appear to have been the victim of an overzealous government police force with a bit too much power on its hands.

FreeDNS has expressed outrage.  In a statement, they comment, “Freedns.afraid.org has never allowed this type of abuse of its DNS service. We are working to get the issue sorted as quickly as possible.”

Over the weekend they managed to begin restoring some of the pages.  Meanwhile small business owners were left to try to reassure customers that they were note engaging in illegal activity [source example].

The DHS is actually bragging about the takedowns citing 10 child porn sites that were taken offline, but conveniently forgetting to mention the 84,000 legitimate sites it also killed.  Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano states [press release]:

Each year, far too many children fall prey to sexual predators and all too often, these heinous acts are recorded in photos and on video and released on the Internet…DHS is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to shut down websites that promote child pornography to protect these children from further victimization.

The DHS has not yet released an official statement on the abuse of power.  It also has yet to comment on whether it plans to compensate webpage owners for lost business or damage to their websites.

Website owners can still replicate the redirect by adding “74.81.170.110 mooo.com” to their hosts file.

As always please feel free to tell us what you think in the comments section.

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Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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psychedelikrelik
12 years ago

This feels like a good time to say UTERUS.

king
12 years ago

i realy happy that they shutting down the porn web sites keep doing the job’s guys. LET THE LORD BE UPON ALL OF YOU WHO PLAN TO SHUT DOWN INTERNET PORN.

13 years ago

I am very impressed with the excellent views of our visitors, David and WA Formby. I agree wholeheartedly with both of you!

WAFormby
13 years ago

I realize it is important to save children but I think we may be saving them from the wrong people a lot of the time. The religious right in conjunction with the government is more dangerous to kids than the child pornography business. Everyday children’s minds are warped about sex, religion, their bodies, and life in general by their parents, churches, and even our school systems. Teaching kids that there is is something dirty and nasty about their bodies and sex has probably created more pedophiles, rapists, and serial killers than any thing else in history.

Jess
13 years ago

Ah hell they blurred out Stewie’s butt on The Family Guy and oh by the way, he’s a damn cartoon so this is nothing. I swear Europe, is looking so much nicer and you know who else lived there don’t you? Yeah all those damn Europeans with their liberal ways, I may have to give up and just get out of this country I’m tired of it all today.

13 years ago

What this story is really about is the drive to remove due process by the executive government. This is only a small example of what happens when you have a society and system of justice that now actively repudiates due process. A police state can be defined as one where the efficiency of the police is considered more important than the basic rights of the people. If so, the United States presently meets this definition well, and actively seeks to institutionalize itself as such.

Pam Ladds
13 years ago

Nothing like sanitizing cow’s udders etc, having hissy fits at the thought of breast feeding, protecting kids from language they all use anyway but having no problem with the pornography of war!!! Pathetic!

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