The UK is in its early steps of developing such policy/laws - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11845961

What seems to be happening is that criminal activities and IP enforcement become conceptually blurred, which allows for such actions to be legitimized and validated. What I think will happen is that we will start seeing more criminal laws get amended to include IP issues (rather the other way around) under a general context which will provide a catch all environment for Internet-related activity. Through this, it will also make more sense for law enforcement agencies to get actively involved without concerns over separation of powers or legitimacy.

Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis,

Law Lecturer,

Director of Postgraduate Instructional Courses

Director of LLM Information Technology and Telecommunications Law

University of Strathclyde,

The Law School,

Graham Hills building,

50 George Street, Glasgow G1 1BA

tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306

http://www.routledgemedia.com/books/The-Current-State-of-Domain-Name-Regulation-isbn9780415477765

Selected publications: http://hq.ssrn.com/submissions/MyPapers.cfm?partid=501038

Website: www.komaitis.org

From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Marc Rotenberg
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 12:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and More

More news today.

(I had a hunch that the Dept of Justice would

be involved.)

Marc Rotenberg

EPIC

--------

                    From:                 Morning Tech <[log in to unmask]>
                     Subject:           POLITICO's Morning Tech, presented by Washington's NewsChannel 8: Today: DOJ discusses IP enforcement - NetCoalition opposing Comcast-NBC merger - Fmr. Pres. George W. Bush heads to FB for live book chat - The privacy debate returns
                     Date:                November 29, 2010 5:20:38 AM EST

DRIVING THE DAY: DOJ DETAILS IP ENFORCEMENT - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and ICE Director John Morton are holding a press conference this morning at DOJ where the two will announce "an intellectual property enforcement action," according to the release. This comes on the heels of ICE seizing the Web addresses of several file-sharing websites late last week - more on that below. ICE officials declined to comment on the websites that were taken down.

ICYMI: U.S. CRACKS DOWN ON PIRACY HAVENS - From the NYT: "In what appears to be the latest phase of a far-reaching federal crackdown on online piracy of music and movies, the Web addresses of a number of sites that facilitate illegal file-sharing were seized this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security. ... The new seizures also come as a new bill, the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act, is making its way through Congress. The bill, which was approved by a Senate committee last week, would allow the government to shut down sites that are 'dedicated to infringing activities.'" MORE: http://nyti.ms/dOTbmb

On Nov 28, 2010, at 11:17 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

Exactly, DHS consolidated functions that used to be in separate departments (Customs, INS)

-----Original Message-----

From: Marc Rotenberg [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2010 11:09 AM

To: Milton L Mueller

Cc: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and

More

As a US lawyer, it seems odd to me that the DHS would have

this role. International law enforcement matters are routinely

coordinated by the Dept. of Justice. ICE is a relatively

recent creation, gathering powers that traditionally resided

with Customs and the INS.

Marc.

On Nov 28, 2010, at 10:56 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

Not so odd, Marc, because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is

part of DHS.

Customs would be the primary agency involved in transnational

counterfeiting enforcement actions.

Recall ACTA and related negotiations. Interesting that this can go on

without COICA.

-----Original Message-----

From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf

Of

Marc Rotenberg

Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 8:26 AM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: [NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS] U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent

Search Engine Domain and More

According to the New York York Times, it was the Dept of

Homeland Security (the same agency that brought us

airport body scanners) that seized the BitTorrent site and others.

This seems odd since it is the US Dept of Justice that would

typically investigate copyright matters.

Note also that this action took place prior to Senate action

on COICA.

Marc Rotenberg

EPIC

-----------------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html

U.S. Shuts Down Web Sites in Piracy Crackdown

By BEN SISARIO

Published: November 26, 2010

In what appears to be the latest phase of a far-reaching federal

crackdown on online piracy of music and movies, the Web addresses of

a number of sites that facilitate illegal file-sharing were seized

this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the

Department of Homeland Security.

By Friday morning, visiting the addresses of a handful of sites that

either hosted unauthorized copies of films and music or allowed

users to search for them elsewhere on the Internet produced a notice

that said, in part: "This domain name has been seized by ICE -

Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant

issued by a United States District Court."

* * *

On Nov 27, 2010, at 1:57 AM, Alex Gakuru wrote:

Does this mean *all* search engines with links will be shut down

anytime, including 'Big G'?

On 11/27/10, Alex Gakuru <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Why complained earlier on expectations that cash strapped ccTLDs

especially

in Africa/developing cannot afford parallel servers, databases and

time

costs to enforce third parties IP/copyrights/trademark etc

interests.

It

somehow 'feels' safer NOT to register a .com now?

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 7:34 AM, Robin Gross <[log in to unmask]>

wrote:

The latest info that I've seen is that Verisign assigned new DNS

servers

at the Registry level, and then locked the domain so that even the

Registrar

can't update it. So now it looks like it may have been VeriSign

who

"seized" them. No word on ICANN's role in this situation, if any.

On Nov 26, 2010, at 8:29 PM, Marc Perkel wrote:

So was it ICANN that actually did the seizing?

On 11/26/2010 7:25 PM, Michael Haffely wrote:

The concerning part about the report from today is that the domain

owner

never received any complaint or due process before the domains

were

seized.

It appears that no Cease and Desist, warrant, suit, or other

criminal

complaint was brought up before the domain was taken. What if

(for

an

example) this behavior is taken up by the Patent and Copyright

"trolls".

What happens to an individual/nonprofit/organization when they

have

their

domain yanked out from under them?

If ICANN is to seize domains from their rightful owners by demand

of

a

law

enforcement agency we need to have a clear, *rapid* appeals

process

to

prevent abuse by corporations, law enforcement agencies, and

governments.

-Mike H.

On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 8:46 PM, Andrew A. Adams <[log in to unmask]>

wrote:

Very similar moves are happening in the UK, with Nominet (UK non-

profit

with

the .uk (and .gb) country-code delegation) engaging with the UK's

SOCA

(Serious and Organised Crime Agency *) to remove 1200 "sites

engaged in

selling counterfeit goods" recently and now doing a more explicit

deal

with

the police to take down the DNS registration for sites "alleged

to

be

involved in criminal activity".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/25/nominet_crime/

(*) The SOCA is a rather dodgy organisation, IMHO. When it was

set

up

the

then home secrewtary made a big thing of it not being actually

police

and

therefore not bound by the requirements that the police have to

respect

the

human rights of citizens. THat's a recipe for a secret police

operating

extra-judicially and here we see exactly that kind of approach.

I am very worried by these kinds of moves. Zittrain's "The Future

of the

Internet" and Mueller's "Networks and States" concerns about

censorship

becoming the norm not the exception online seem to be coming

true.

While

I'm

not in favour of criminals having free reign, the trouble is that

all

the

hard won freedoms such as due process, balance of rights, etc.

seem

to

be

being thrown out in the digital domain.

--

Professor Andrew A Adams [log in to unmask]

Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and

Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics

Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/

IP JUSTICE

Robin Gross, Executive Director

1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 USA

p: +1-415-553-6261 f: +1-415-462-6451

w: http://www.ipjustice.org e: [log in to unmask]

--

regards,

Alex Gakuru

http://www.mwenyeji.com

Hosting, surprise yourself!

--

regards,

Alex Gakuru

http://www.mwenyeji.com

Hosting, surprise yourself!