February 2, 2011

Sports Domains Seized by Federal Government

Just in case you are not already freaked out enough by the increasing reach of the United States federal government, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has just seized some more Web domains without a trial for allegedly facilitating access to pirated streaming sports content.

Given the way the Egyptian government has abused it's power by shutting down the nation's Internet as a measure to control civil unrest, American citizens should be alarmed by how freely the United States government is seizing domains from companies it suspects are breaking the law.

The US government has already seized domains of companies it suspects of selling counterfeit merchandise. Now it is going after streaming sport content. What will be next? If the United States government is willing to ignore due process to seize domains under these circumstances, where will they draw the line? We are only a few steps away from the seizure of Web sites critical of the government and politicians that ICE determine might be breaking some law.

Here is a list of the Web sites seized by the US government on February 2, 2011.

atdhe.net
channelsurfing.net
firstrow.net
hq-streams.com
hq-streams.net
ilemi.com
iilemi.com
iilemii.com
rojadirecta.com
rojadirecta.org


Just to demonstrate how ridiculous and ineffective all of this is, ATDHE.net is already back online as ATDHE.me.

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