Re: [ga] The Network Solutions contribution to international terror

[Marc Schneiders <marc@fuchsia.bijt.net>]

On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, at 08:40 [=GMT-0400], Joanna Lane wrote:

[...]
> Against this background we have named terrorist groups openly using the DNS,
> putting up websites in the legacy root and using them to promote their
> illegal activities. These are not "freedom fighters", these are people
> engaged in genocide, in Israel, in America and who knows where next. They
> are no more worthy of "freedom of speech" rights, than child pornographers
> or Nazis, 

I must disagree. Everyone has a right to freedom of speech. And there
are already some cases that have attracted attention in which sites
were shut down, e.g. for calling to violence (anti-abortionist group,
Neurenberg files). There are many pro-Nazi (right wing fascist)
propaganda sites, by the way, running from the US aimed at Germany.
The Germans tried to shut some down recently by using DNS and
diverting traffic. In France we had some case against Yahoo, which
demanded that Yahoo blocked traffic to certain webpages for French
citizins. We live in interesting times...

> yet less than a handful of people here have taken a responsible
> attitude or even shown an interest. There is a thunderous silence from all
> the leading Registry and Registrar Compliance Executives, and many are
> reading this list. Why? Are they cowards, or in denial?

They will not burn their hands on this topic, certainly not
ICANN. Whoever promotes censorship on the internet, will lose. It is
the beginning of the end.

I am not saying that nothing can and nothing ever should be done
against particular websites, e.g. those inciting violence. Telling the
Palestine side of the story, or the IRA side, etc. should be free
though. And decisions should be made on individual websites by the
courts, not ICANN, NSI in some general rules.


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