Hooray for Mozilla. That about sums this story up. Remember all those domain names ICE keeps seizing? There are countless ways to get around these silly seizures,like using your operating system’s hosts file. To make this a less cumbersome process, several Firefox extensions dot he work for you. Well, since copyright infringement is naturally a threat to the security of the United States, the Department of Homeland Security contacted Mozilla, asking them to take down one of these extensions. Mozilla declined.
The extension in question is MafiaaFire Redirector, an extension which makes it very easy to bypass the US government’s domain name seizures. The DHS is obviously not happy about this, and thus, they contacted Mozilla, asking them to take down MafiaaFire. Mozilla has denied the request, because it didn’t come with a court order. Consequently, Mozilla asked the DHS several questions:
- Have any courts determined that the Mafiaafire add-on is unlawful or illegal in any way? If so, on what basis? (Please provide any relevant rulings)
- Is Mozilla legally obligated to disable the add-on or is this request based on other reasons? If other reasons, can you please specify.
- Can you please provide a copy of the relevant seizure order upon which your request to Mozilla to take down the Mafiaafire add-on is based?
Mozilla has not yet received a response to these questions. All this shows Mozilla is taking this very seriously, and I’m very happy with that. “One of the fundamental issues here is under what conditions do intermediaries accede to government requests that have a censorship effect and which may threaten the open Internet,” Mozilla writes, “In this case, the underlying justification arises from content holders legitimate desire to combat piracy. The problem stems from the use of these government powers in service of private content holders when it can have unintended and harmful consequences.”
I’m wondering what would’ve happend if Google, Apple, or Microsoft had received such a request. My guess is they would’ve complied blindly, because they must appease the US government to further their own cause – you know, lobbying and all that. The developer of MediaaFire is currently working on bringing the extension to Chrome, so we’ll see how Google responds to that.
“Now, because my idea, which took less than a week to create – and the Chrome version 2 days – makes them walk around with egg on their face after the millions spent (it cost me less than $100), they went running to Mozilla seeking another favor,” the developer told Ars, “They did not even try to contact us. Hats off to Mozilla for sticking up to them, at first we were afraid if Mozilla would even host it due to its controversial nature but they truly backed up their open source supporting words with actions.”
Mozilla ftw.
Mozilla scores another important win for the open web!
Go Mozilla. You tell em!
That’s another reason I use Firefox and not Chrome. I respect Mozilla for their stance on open web and freedom.
NOt to be a spoilsport, and I’m just as happy with Mozilla’s stance for an open web as others are, but how long do you suppose it would take DHS to get the required court order in this country when you consider that due process has become a colossal joke?
Not sure, but it’s already a democracy win that they need to take the time.
IIRC, those new domain seizures are applied before a court ruling has been won against the domain owner, which is a dangerous slap in the face of the “innocent unless proven guilty” principle, that is itself a core principle of democracy.
Edited 2011-05-07 07:09 UTC
Agreed. What’s really troubling and irritating is that the DHS is even concerning themselves with this issue to begin with. What a complete waste of US tax dollars, in my opinion. Our ship is already taking on nearly more water than we can handle all the while these guys are pissing away our resources.
I see the Gestapo is at it again, foolish considering they are an illegal organization in violation of our Constitution.
From what I read, DHS requested Mozilla to take it down. It was not a cease and desist letter, and DHS did not seem to threaten any legal action if they did not comply.
There is a significant difference between that and the Gestapo.
Having been dealing with US authorities for a couple of years, I can certainly tell that such requests are being made all the time. It’s up to you on how do you treat them. “If Google, Apple, or Microsoft had received such a request.” ? They would have immediately honor it, or at least that’s what the conventional wisdom says.
There’s a difference between subpoena, a request, court order, etc, etc. I, as an ex security officer, have had received at least 20 requests from different law firms, none of which had solid ground for execution, so they were simply dismissed. Mozilla FTW.
Why is US always scared ? Osama is dead, right ?
Utter disregard for other countries sovereignty comes to mind.
I can fully understand the F.B.I. going after pirates, but why the DHS? I would love for somebody, anybody to explain why this agency is essentially guaranteeing that the nation is so secure from terrorists that they have extra time on their hands. I’d also love to see somebody actually challenge it in court. I mean, do we not have separate agencies so no one becomes all-powerful?
It’s because we’ve got all of these politicians that create agencies like DHS on the fly that never go away and continue to be a drain on our frail economy long after they’ve served their intended purpose. Our congress and senators keep taking special interest money from all of these lobbying groups and padding a few pockets here and there (like over at DHS in this example) to get the special interest groups (that would be the entertainment industry in this example) bidding done. All the while we keep giving them a percentage of our paychecks so they can keep paying the salaries of these employees of these agencies who also get government benefits that tax payers also have to pay for.
At the end of all this, they get up in front of the cameras, show up on c-span, cnn, fox news and whatever else and put on a show pretending like everything is peachy and they’re working hard to get our country back on track mean while some jack-a** at DHS is getting paid (and probably getting retirement as well as health insurance) to try and enforce copyright on behalf of the entertainment industry.
Yes, this was a rant.