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Censorship Your Rights Online

Hosting Provider Shut Down By FBI 400

Posted by timothy from the lesson-for-the-pr-department dept.
An Anonymous Reader writes: "An 80-strong U.S. FBI agents raided the Texas-based host of Arabic Web sites, including that of the Arab world's leading independent news channel, prompting charges on Thursday of an 'anti-Muslim witchhunt.'" The Reuters story is at Yahoo! as well. Did you know there was a North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force, or that it would be shutting down ISPs?
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Hosting Provider Shut Down By FBI More

Hosting Provider Shut Down By FBI

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  • CNN probably has stuff too (Score:4, Interesting)

    by trance9 ( 10504 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:03PM (#2261420) Homepage Journal

    Imagine if an FBI raid on CNN resulting in the broadcaster going off the air for a few hours, or the website being shut down.

    I think there's some bias here.

    Sure, they probably have a search warrant. Sure, it's probably warranted. But this wouldn't be the first news organization had some information the police wanted or needed, and didn't hand it over. Journalists have these crazy ideas about protecting their sources, and don't always willingly give the police what they want.

    But still, if it were a western mainstream media organization the police would be careful not to disrupt operations.

    I think there must be some bias here.
    • You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that web sites are afforded the same protections under the law that broadcasters are. They're not.
    • Obligatory reprimand follows :
      Next time read the article before you post. The news agencies weren't raided, their web hosting provider was. There's no indication of who the target of the warrant is, but it's highly unlikely that it's a foreign news agency... Sheesh...

  • They were *NOT* shut down. (Score:3, Troll)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:04PM (#2261426) Homepage Journal
    Their operations were simply interrupted while the Fed's conducted their search. The sites came back online, fair and square.

    The search was perfectly legal, and executed per the law.

    For crying out loud, glib sensationalism is the last thing slashdot needs more of ...

    Shame!
    • What? Slashdot is ONLY glib sensationalism!
    • right. this doesn't sound like censorship, either, --just an asset search. they were probably (and maybe still are) planning to seize machines they think were used for something illegal (like maybe used in a hacking attempt).

      i think someone's overreacting. at least the article didn't mention that they were linux servers, or else the posts would be hysterical with indignation.
    • In other words:

      This article: Troll=1, misinformation=1, TypicalSlashdot=2
      • You forgot WRONG = 2 and STUPID= 3.
      • Slashdot self-hate is getting really tedious. Why the hell would anyone mod up this pointless comment? It's like all the fucking comments that just say "of course, ignorant slashdotters will mod this down, but I'll say it anyway." As though baseless self-critique is somehow a purifying influence, or puts you people above the Masses.

        It's disturbing that not only do so many commenters have a negative opinion of slashdot, but moderators think empty criticisms like this are actually worth points. If you have criticism that isn't just glib, go ahead, but otherwise if you don't like it just go the fuck away or keep it to yourself. And please don't encourage this shit by moding it up!

        I usually don't swear, and I usually don't like the "if you don't like it, go away" response, but the pretentions of these sorts of posts piss me off. They remind me of high school and the all the idiots who thought they were cool because they insulted everything and everyone.

        • A few points:
          One can enjoy Slashdot and criticize it at the same time.
          Less is more; briefness is not always thoughtlessness.
          That said, your point is well taken. Positive criticism is usually better than cynicism.

    • Re:They were *NOT* shut down. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Patrick13 ( 223909 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:17PM (#2261492) Homepage Journal
      Actually, I think that if you read the Yahoo article carefully, it says
      "...many of the sites were able to start up again on other servers, while the task force continued to copy computerized information on Thursday. The office remained sealed off by FBI agents."


      Starting up on another server is not nearly the same as "coming back online, fair and square".
    • He said many of the sites were able to start up again on other servers, while the task force continued to copy computerized information on Thursday. The office remained sealed off by FBI agents.

      It sounds like some sites are still offline. And many had to move to new servers.

      --
      Troll is a troll is a troll.

    • This doesn't mean they didn't get the shaft. In the pursuit of protecting itself the US government will trample your rights. The modern hunt for Islamic 'terrorists' isn't too different from the 1950's hunt for communists, only now this sort of thing is done more discreetly and doesn't target white people. Don't forget, radical muslims target America because the US government is an imperialist power in the Arab (middle eastern) world.

      I'll be interested to see if this ISP ever gets its hardware back...

      • No, radical Muslims target the US because
        the US is the current HQ of the Jewish-Masonic
        conspiracy that toppled the Ottoman Caliphate
        in 1918.

        I am not kidding. THis is what they believe.
        Ahmad Thomson's "Dajjal the Antichrist" is
        the book that goes into details about this
        conspiracy. Great reading, if you're stoned.

        • No, radical Muslims target the US because
          the US is the current HQ of the Jewish-Masonic
          conspiracy that toppled the Ottoman Caliphate
          in 1918.

          Better live under a jewish-masonic rule than under strict islamic rule!

    • For crying out loud, glib sensationalism is the last thing slashdot needs more of ...

      Shame!

      Would you be more upset if it was CNN.com that went down while the FBI conducted their search? What were they doing there? Oh, they didn't say. If the government is going to start messing with the flow of information in this country they'd better have a good reason -- and the public should be able to judge how good the reason is.

      I'd rather live in world where terrorists hid behind freedom of the press than one where the police hid behind fear of terrorism.

  • Can you say 'Freedom of Press'? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:12PM (#2261466)
    While the fourth amendment may not have been violated due to the fact that there was a valid search warrant, this kind of tactic sounds like classic 'silencing' to me. The warrant was sealed, right? Why were the offices raided? The quote in the reuters story from the owner indicated that he seemed to think that his news outlets were being targeted for being related to terrorist groups. There was *no* firm reason for the raid given.

    Sounds very totalitarian, doesn't it?

    As a Texan, I'm rather upset that we have a 'anti-terrorism force' at all! Hevean help me if I started to express anti-American views on my website!

    • If you don't want to get along with your community, get the hell out. [Go live somewhere else]

      Why do you think you have the right to sit around making trouble for others?

    • Jeez, you even appear to have read the article, and you're still uninformed. The news agencies were not raided - their hosting provider was. A hosting provider that hosts hundreds of customers, including the arab news agencies mentioned... The warrant was sealed, meaning the press doesn't get told who the target of the search was, so the media tied the FBI angle to the arab news agency and let all the lemmings jump to wild conclusions....
        • media tied the FBI angle to the arab news agency and let all the lemmings jump to wild conclusions....

        Why would the North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force be raiding a server shop? Some of the articles are very clear in their statements. I know media types are notoriously hysterical, but when they're not sure about something, they tend to go hog wild on the "allegedlys".

        • Infocom Corporation was the target of the raid by the North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force. Infocom runs computer Web sites for more than 500 companies around the world.
        • The government believes Infocom has ties to the Holy Land Foundation, which is located across the street.
        • The U.S. government has been investigating the Holy Land Foundation for some time, believing that it has ties to Hamas, a Palestinian organization which engages in terrorist activities against Israel

        • Oh, wait, here's another.

          • at least two US Islamic groups, including the Holy Land Foundation, across the street from Infocom, confirmed they have been served subpoenas for documents related to Infocom

          It now looks like the gubmint reckons that the ISP is primarily a front for the Holy Land Foundation, not a common carrier. Interesting case, interesting precedent.

          • > It now looks like the gubmint reckons that the ISP is primarily a front for the Holy Land Foundation, not a common carrier. Interesting case, interesting precedent.

            Has anyone stopped to ponder the possibility that this might be true? (Even a stopped clock is right twice a day ;)

            Depending on how careless they were, a bit of amateur poking around at DNS records could even establish connections between the ISP and Holy Land. The skills required to establish this aren't much different from those required to track down spammers.

            Speaking of whom, have we forgotten an "ISP" called "Telodigm" which existed only as a front for a certain spammer's ongoing spamming operations for a certain questionable diet product, for the better part of a year?

            And speaking from my own experience, during the first days of the Kosovo conflict, I received (and reported) spam coming from Yugoslavian sites, but relayed through sites located in North America. The sites were set up by various anti-US organizations. In one case, the upstream's homepage revealed that it was most certainly not an ISP, but an activist site. (Needless to say, that spam didn't get reported to the "ISP", as they were clearly complicit in the network abuse.)

            That's not to say there was anything necessarily illegal about these sites or those operating them -- but the geographical locations of the organizations in the DNS records were, to say the least, interesting. (One was registered to an address a few blocks away from a bunch of embassies. What a strange place from which to run an ISP, no?) While I don't have network logs to bear me out, I would not be at all surprised to find that some of these sites tacitly supported (through open SOCKS proxies, for instance) some of the cracking attempts on .mil and .int networks that was reported during this timeframe.

            From where I sit, I have no evidence. Anyone who's followed my postings knows I don't have any trust for the Feebs. But even I at my most paranoid, I am open to the possibility that maybe they knew something we don't. And maybe that was enough to convince a judge. And maybe the judge didn't just rubber-stamp the warrant. And maybe what happened in Texas was a good thing.

            The public sites are up on other providers - apart from a couple hours of downtime, I see little First Amendment risk.

            Whatever may (or may not) have happened behind the scenes at this ISP is being archived for use in a trial. The trial will be held in public, and if there is something wrong, there should be plenty of non-classified evidence that can be put into the record. I'm willing to wait for the trial to make up my mind.

      • Why were the offices raided

      A lonely post below makes the salient point that the Steve Jackson Games case set the precedent that unless the ISP itself was accused of a felony, the data should have been subpoenaed, not physically seized.

      Also, I'd be very interested to know why it takes 80 agents to raid a server farm. What were they expecting? "You can have my root password when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers"?

      So it looks like either the ISP itself was a hotbed of scum like terrorist, paedophles and hard core Linux users, or the FBI has (once again) got it badly wrong. As they have chosen to have no transparency or (immediate) accountability, I'm going to judge on their past behaviour and assume the latter.

      • Also, I'd be very interested to know why it takes 80 agents to raid a server farm. What were they expecting? "You can have my root password when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers"?

        Its all about law enforcement ego. Everyone wants a piece of the action, so everyone goes on the raid. That's how they validate their budgets and promotions. I gaurantee that 70 of them were standing around in their bullet-proof vests and sidearms sipping a latte for six hours after the initial entry.

        Begin silly anecdote. A friend of mine witnessed this firsthand some years ago. While working for a company that investigates accident claims for insurance companies, he was called to the scene of a boat fire. The sherrif detectives were already on the scene. Shortly afterwards, the marine patrol investigators (state police) showed up because the fire was on a boat in the water and hence in their jurisdiction. All these investigators were walking around with clipboards and cameras. Then comes walking in the BATFAgs - Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Agents, carrying clipboards, fancy cameras, and their sidearms. Well, everyone got in each other's way until lunch, when they went their separate ways - except for the sherrif who got the job of watching the scene. Upon returning from lunch, the sherrif investigators were now armed and the marine patrol investigators were now armed. Coupled with the fact that most of the company investigators were legally carrying concealed weapons (in Florida its OK if you have a permit), my friend was looking at a fairly volitile situation, should some kid decide to light some firecrackers. Keep in mind that police are not neseccarily good shooters as evidenced by the Waco fiasco where several agent wounds were either self-inflicted or inflicted by fellow agents.

      • lso, I'd be very interested to know why it takes 80 agents to raid a server farm.

        Maybe they are practicing for an overdue raid on a software company run by known criminals...
  • WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush announced today in Washington that there was no longer any need to delve into the Social Security and Medicare surplus. During a press conference at the White House, President Bush said "After carefully studying the behavior of Microsoft, we have determined it to be a terrorist organization. As such, I have instructed the US Office of Foreign Asset Control to seize all assets of Microsoft, and it's founders, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Steve Balmer."

    The seized assets are expexted to top 150 billion dollars, more than enough to pull the US out from the hole dug by the Bush administrations massive tax cuts.
  • I have heard of this Arab newstation before. I saw a story about it on american television, I forget which channel.. perhaps BBC-america.

    The arab governments have fears that it may bring democracy.. well, not all of them. The newstation is located in Jordan. The prime-minister of Jordan, on this television documentary I watched admitted that the coming of democracy would be good and supported the efforts of this news station.

    I can not see how their website was breaking American law, although they may have been breaking laws in other countries.. which shouldn't matter if it is hosted in the USA. The most the Arab countries should be able to do, imho, is to arrest the runners of this newstation.

    Of course, the Arab government are afraid to do anything because they would be making martyrs of the procecuted.. I guess that is why they had the USA do the dirty work for them :(

    This is the first direct sign that the USA is turning it's heels on democracy. This is the first time that the USA has tried to dissolve protesters cries of their corrupt, non-democratic government.

    • This is the first direct sign that the USA is turning it's heels on democracy. This is the first time that the USA has tried to dissolve protesters cries of their corrupt, non-democratic government.

      Wha? Um, didn't the US prop up the Shah of Iran, and continue to oppose the populist replacement? Didn't the USA force Fidel to side with the communist because of some sugar plantation interests? Did the 80's in Latin America happen? Didn't we kill 100,000 Filipino's trying to win independence from the US of A?

      First my ass, the US will squash democracy anywhere it might oppose the interests of the empire.

      The cold war rheotoric just made it imprudent to behave badly in public, now we have extraconstitutional "anti-terrorism" and "anti-drug" measures, and we're working on killing anonymous speech too. Can't leave a wrong word unpunished.

  • CLEAR media bias (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If it were a jewish ISP being shut down then this would be all over the news.

  • FBI claims no bias (Score:3, Insightful)

    by firewort ( 180062 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:18PM (#2261496)
    Well, this is an interesting situation:

    We have the FBI, who I don't trust.
    We have the Arabic news sources, who I also don't trust.

    The FBI is denying any kind of bias whatsoever, and that the investigation is totally unrelated to terrorist concerns, anti-palestinian, anti-muslim, or anti anything else.

    Still, until we have any better information (which I'm looking forward to) this amounts to a very short period of Government sponsored hacktivism (okay, it's arguable how much hacktivism is involved when the G-men come in and take you offline, but it's the same result as geeks taking down opressors and terrorists sites on the other side of the world.)

  • Quick news hunt. (Score:5, Informative)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:21PM (#2261507) Journal
    Found some news clips.

    Anti-terrorism agents raid Texas Internet business [txcn.com]

    FBI Raids Muslim Businesses, Charity Organizations [middleeastwire.com]

    FBI Raids Dallas-Area Web Business [yahoo.com]
  • A radical Hindu web site had its access taken away for good due to complaints by Muslim groups, and nary a Slashdot story on it, or any gnashing of teeth by those defenders of free speech at iViews.


    I guess it's OK for Muslim complaints to take out a Hindu web site, but it's not OK for federal investigation to shut down some Muslim web sites for a few hours.


    BTW, the Hindu web site found hosting again on a server run by a militant Jewish group. The New York Times ran a story on it a few months ago; it's funny what strange bedfellows these sorts of things can make.


    I expect this will be modded down to about -200 in a few minutes...interesting how the truth can do that.


    -jon

    • I expect this will be modded down to about -200 in a few minutes...interesting how the truth can do that.


      Where's the "-1: Self-Indulgent Posing" option?

    • The site involved was hinduunity.org.

    • Some big differences (Score:5, Insightful)

      by L-Train8 ( 70991 ) <Matthew_Hawk AT hotmail DOT com> on Thursday September 06, 2001 @10:01PM (#2261669) Homepage Journal
      The Hindu Unity [hinduunity.org] website incident is a very different situation. The site had some strong anti-Muslim views, particularly towards Muslims in India. Stuff that could be interpereted as a call for violence against Muslims in India (the current home page has a cartoon of Muslims stabbing to death a Hindu mother). And people complained to the ISP, who told the organization to take their business elsewhere. Here [rediff.com] is an article.

      The case of the ISP in Texas involves the government shutting down, albeit temporarily and as an incidental consequence of searching for evidence, lots of websites without explanation, only a sealed warrant. This includes one of the most prominent sites news of the middle east that is not controlled by a government of the region.

      People get up in arms about controversial websites, like porn sites, hate sites, spammer sites, radical anti-abortion sites, etc, all the time. And sometimes, complaints to the ISP are effective in forcing the site to move to an ISP that is less concerned about complaints from the public. That isn't really news.

      The government shutting down 500 mostly arab-related websites without explanation should be considered more newsworthy.

      • People get up in arms about controversial websites, like porn sites, hate sites, spammer sites, radical anti-abortion sites, etc, all the time. And sometimes, complaints to the ISP are effective in forcing the site to move to an ISP that is less concerned about complaints from the public. That isn't really news.


        Now, I haven't checked to see exactly which sites were taken down temporarily, but there are several Muslim organizations in the US who raise money for groups that US government considers terrorist groups. That's illegal.


        My guess is that at least one of the web sites falls into this category. We're not talking about sites that preach hate and violence, we're talking about sites that finance it. I'm not saying that every Muslim web site or organization is hateful or violent or whatever, but they do exist.


        By your standards, this shouldn't be news, then.


        -jon

  • local news links (Score:5, Informative)

    by Emrys ( 7536 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:22PM (#2261512)
    Since people are mentioning lack of real detail on the "why" of the raid, and I live down here in Dallas, I guess I'll be a karma whore:

    http://www.wfaa.com/wfaa/articledisplay/0,1002,310 13,00.html [wfaa.com]
    http://www.wfaa.com/wfaa/articledisplay/0,1002,311 20,00.html [wfaa.com]

  • Deja Vu All Over Again (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 1alpha7 ( 192745 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:26PM (#2261533) Homepage

    This reminds me so much of the Steve Jackson Games raid of a decade ago. Yes, the warrant was valid. And sealed. The effect was to nearly silence a voice the SS didn't like.

    1Alpha7

  • Bush is so asking for more heat from arab nations. I can not believe the U.S. government is still pulling this crap off. When is this ignorant pitiful administration going to get their act together. When is Dik Cheny going to start taking over the helm form bumbling Bush. Go Colin Powell!!!!!

  • The sites are back up. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Apuleius ( 6901 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:27PM (#2261538) Journal
    And the search was probably justified. Muslim
    terrorist groups use fronts disguised as charities
    to move money around, and the Holy Land Foundation
    has long been suspected of being a financial front
    for Hamas. Since HLF uses the Web to collect
    donations by way of credit cards, a search of the
    Web hosting company is legit.

    • And the search was probably justified. Muslim
      terrorist groups use fronts disguised as charities
      to move money around, and the Holy Land Foundation
      has long been suspected of being a financial front
      for Hamas. Since HLF uses the Web to collect
      donations by way of credit cards, a search of the
      Web hosting company is legit.

      Jewish business groups use fronts disguised as charities to funnel money into the state of israel, which then uses it to bully it's neighbours in the middle-east.

      Double standard again; the american jews have money, and the american arabs don't. So guess which side the US is leaning towards???

  • Please tell me it's not the same Infocom as this one [csd.uwo.ca].

    In addition to the FBI, they may well find themselves in a legal battle with Activision, who hold all rights to the Infocom property.
  • Maybe the DOJ should just accuse MS of being a terrorist organization, bent on taking over the world. Apparently it's easier than taking them to court.

  • Stop the FUD. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Rothfuss ( 47480 )
    The talk of *BIAS* is ridiculous spincasting by the media and by people that like to constantly complain about persecution. The FBI serves warrants and searches businesses all the time. That's part of their job, like it or not. They don't sit around a water cooler and say "Let's go raid some Moslem businesses this week...that'd be a hoot. We don't like Moslems."

    Come on - that's just stupid. They're working an investigation and this is where it brought them. There are NO details in either article...just journalists looking for a story they can blow out of proportion. If it had been a warehouse where large quantities of twine is stored by a couple of surly old kansas natives it wouldn't have even made the news. No FUD value. That kind of thing happens every week.

    -Rothfuss

    • Re:Stop the FUD. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by notext ( 461158 )
      They're working an investigation and this is where it brought them. There are NO details in either article...

      The reason there are no details in either article is the fact that they give no details. The warrant is sealed. They haven't said why they are searching the stuff or what they are searching for.

      Thats what makes this a unique case. The would have to arrest me to search my stuff without giving me a reason they were searching it or what exactly they were searching for, because I sure as hell wouldn't let them do it.

  • Holy Zork! (Score:2, Funny)

    by anticypher ( 48312 )
    They've shut down Infocom.

    You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike. It is dark, if you proceed, you are likely to be eaten by a grue.

    xyzzy AC

  • sealed warrant? wtf? (Score:4, Troll)

    by bat'ka makhno ( 207538 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:43PM (#2261591)
    What bothers me the most is the continuous stream of legal obfuscation perpetrated by government agencies. How many times in the past couple of years have we heard of defense lawyers denied critical information allegedly out of "greater state interest." Some guys who were allegedly linked to the World Trade Center bombing were kept in jail, without being charged, for several years, until even the DA or whoever decides those things decided not to prosecute the case, since the government just didn't have one.

    What kind of shit is this? If you're going to be violating people's property and impeding commerce, you'd better have a damn valid reason that will stand up to public scrutiny. Otherwise, we might as well get rid of trial by jury, the pesky fifth amendment or the obligation to prove one's guilt before issuing a sentence. Yeah, that's the ticket, just like in those documentaries about the Third Reich that must be the talk of the town in Quantico nowadays.

    This makes me sick.

    • There are myriads of ways to keep a person as a polotical prisoner or to harass/torment them legally here in the USA. If you have enough money to spend on court costs and fees you can have anyone you want imprisioned. Hell a woman only has to just say a man raped her to get him in jail with a red R on his forhead for life, they dont require evidence. Accuse someone of Sexual harassment to get them easily fired at any workplace in the USA... no evidence required here either.

      If you have the money you can bend the law to follow your agenda.... justice and what is right is not an issue or important in the United States.

      (to remind everyone.. I live in the USA, and am appaled at our completely corrupt govt.)

      Oh and to make the feminatzi's back off.. I believethat if a man actually rapes a woman he needs to have his thing chopped off... publically mulitated would be better. and real sexual harassment needs to be dealt with harshly... but far far too many women take this power and abuse it... (and men too!)

  • I'm glad that we have police forces to protect us from those vicious electrons, that so frequently get out of control and become destructive.

  • What amazes me... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gamgee5273 ( 410326 ) on Thursday September 06, 2001 @09:57PM (#2261652) Journal
    ...is that the Muslim community in this country actively supported George W. Bush in the presidental campaign because they were scared of Gore's choice of Lieberman. However, when you look at the record and the campaign statements, Bush continually expressed views that were anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian, while both Gore and Lieberman were clearly on the side of following Clinton's aggressive stance on helping the peace agreement. And they're surprised that the FBI, under an Attorney General who holds some really antiquated political views, have taken these actions.

    Frankly, this doesn't surprise me. George W. Bush and his administration have no problem with you being a different skin color, economic/social class, sexual orientation, etc. as long as you act like them. I'm not saying the Dems are better, but at least there's some indicator from them that you don't have to goosestep to their march exactly the way the Republicans do...

    I'm seriously thinking of moving to Canada until the Shrub presidency is over if this type of action is going to become commonplace. I definitely don't want to raise my children (who will be European/Filipino) in an environment that the Bush Clan seems to think ideal if that environment means silencing dissent and allowing banks to close accounts based on religious views...

    • Jewish-Muslim relations are strained because for centuries these relations were dictated by Sharia Law, which placed Jews in a submissive position. A good portion of the Muslim community of the US regards Jews as if they (well, we) have cooties, and this won't change any time soon. At least since the US has never been under Sharia, Muslims and Jews can try to build relations that are not based on Sharia. The Mideast, however, was under Sharia law, and there are fatwas that explicitly forbid having equality with Jews in the region. Since Jews won't settle for less than equality nowadays, the Mideast is a hot potato.
    • Care to name some of those "anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian" views, or maybe even back up your "goose-stepping" crack by explaining what you think Republicans have in common with the National Socialist Workers Party?

      Oh, and if Canada is fool enough to take you, buh-bye...

      Back on topic: curious how only the local news site mentioned the Hamas connection that is the target of the FBIs search. Rather important detail for the nationals to omit, isn't it?

    • This post was just like some of my essays in junior high. I had no idea what I was talking about, so I just wrote for paragraphs on things that would be interesting if true, but had no true bearing on reality whatsoever. I mean, where to start? There's not much to disagree with, it's just paragraph after paragraph of counterfactual statements.


      As other posters above have noted, Clinton's stance towards the peace agreements was not "aggressive," it was just trying to put a good face on negotiations that were quickly falling apart.


      but at least there's some indicator from them that you don't have to goosestep to their march exactly the way the Republicans do...

      Oh really. Try being a pro-life Democrat. The late Bob Casey, former governor of Pennsylvania, spent decades in service to the Democratic party, but was never given a chance to speak at the Democratic convention because of his pro-life views. In my opinion, one of the sad realities of American politics today is that the left has become just as reactionary as the right, willing to ostracize a person who holds unorthodox views on "liberal" issues as quickly as Pat Robertson would a homosexual. There is no liberal, progressive party in this country - those who label themselves "liberal" are as close-minded as their extremist counterparts.

  • An 80-strong U.S. FBI agents raided the Texas-based host of Arabic Web sites, including that of the Arab world's leading independent news channel, prompting charges on Thursday of an 'anti-Muslim witchhunt.'

    Why is it that every time the government does something bad to (e.g. raids) something that is owned primarily by minorities (e.g. Muslims), the victims cry racism? I'd be ignorant to think that it doesn't happen at all, but this is just plain ridiculous. It seems to me that they are just looking for a scapegoat -- the FBI didn't raid us because of our [p0rn || warez || etc.], they raided us because of our [race || religion || etc.]! Give me a break. IMO people like this need to grow up and realize that not everything bad that happens to them is because of their minority status.
    • Note that you immediately assumed that the raid was probably conducted because of the target's "[p0rn || warez || etc.]" and not because of their "[race || religion || etc.]".

      You also immediately drew a connection between the people involved here and some you've apparently heard about elsewhere who "cry racism" unjustly and on a regular basis.

      My point is that you've hardly shown yourself to be above the sort of instant-conclusion reaction that you attribute to the people involved here.

      Also, considering the United States government is (right now) boycotting the UN's World Conference Against Racism, it's not an entirely unreasonable charge to level against said government at the moment.

      I suspect a bit more research is in order before anyone draws any further conclusions here.

      • Also, considering the United States government is (right now) boycotting the UN's World Conference Against Racism, it's not an entirely unreasonable charge to level against said government at the moment

        There's a reason why they're boycotting that though. As you may have heard, this convention denounces Israel as a racist state (I don't remember the specifics, but that's the main part of it). The US representatives do not agree with this, and they feel strongly enough about the issue that they are willing to boycott the convention. Some other countries are boycotting the convention too because of this, IIRC. I don't know a whole lot about Israel, but I've heard much worse about other countries as far as how they treat outsiders.

        Note that you immediately assumed that the raid was probably conducted because of the target's "[p0rn || warez || etc.]" and not because of their "[race || religion || etc.]

        Point taken. But the FBI doesn't just choose who to raid at random...do they? *Something* had to have been going on there to get the FBI's attention. As you said, more research is in order here.
        • I can assure you that if the conference had labelled any of the Arab countries as a "racist, apartheid state", the U.S. would not have walked out.
        • Where you are allowed to live in Israel depends on whether you are palestinian or not. Sounds like institutional racism to me.

          Personally I think the US should stop mailing checks to Israel until they sort the whole thing out. Give them a bit of incentive.
        • There's a reason why they're boycotting that though. As you may have heard, this convention denounces Israel as a racist state (I don't remember the specifics, but that's the main part of it). The US representatives do not agree with this, and they feel strongly enough about the issue that they are willing to boycott the convention.


          That's not entirely true. This conference recognizes a problem of racism in Israel, and would like to work toward a solution. The language has become increasingly mild and conciliatory toward Israel as the preparations and the conference itself have gone on. In point of fact, the United States walked out before Israel did!


          There is also a very large contingent at the conference (including an African bloc and many US NGOs) who believe that the U.S. is using the Israel/Palestine issue as a smokescreen because it doesn't want to discuss the possibility of declaring the trans-Atlantic slave trade to have been a crime against humanity, and is avoiding the issue of reparations for said crime altogether.


          Europe and Africa seem to have been squaring off on that issue, but none of those countries boycotted the WCAR.

  • They also ran the IQ (Iraq) TLD as seen here [iana.org]. The day of the RAID, the DNS went down on the primary server. It appears to be back up now.

  • Since the warrant is sealed, we shouldn't be too quick to jump to the conclusion that the raid is somehow directed at the Muslim clients. If it is, we can be outraged when the truth comes out. If it is not, we're just reinforcing the stereotype that Muslims are somehow always doing things shady enough to warrant 80-some FBI agents at a time. Few people will learn or remember that this was a false alarm.

    Consider another possibility: wasn't that recent big kiddie porn case also based in Texas? It's hardly unreasonable to ask if this might be that site reborn. It would certainly explain the agents keeping quiet, especially if they're actively monitoring attempts to connect to that site since they took control.
      • Since the warrant is sealed, we shouldn't be too quick to jump to the conclusion that the raid is somehow directed at the Muslim clients

      Since the warrant is sealed, and there is no transparency or (immediate) accountability, we should (IMHO) assume the worst. Remember, this is the FBI, an agency that boasts about its ability to lie and socially engineer. Also, why does it take 80 agents to shut down a hosting shop? What were they expecting, "You can have my root password when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers"?

      • Remember, this is the FBI, an agency that boasts about its ability to lie and socially engineer.

        No, that's the CIA, NSA, IRS, LAPD, and YMCA. The FBI is the agency that keeps losing guns and laptops while finding new ways to wiretap your phones without calling it wiretapping.

  • Unless the ISP itself, not its customers, is accused of a felony, the FBI is supposed to supoena the data, not search for it themselves.
    I thought we'd settled this with Steve Jackson Games.


    Do we have any info yet on what this is about?

  • Searches of News organizations are governed by the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 [cornell.edu]



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