DirectNics legal rights in relation to its recent actions

[softball]

"I think that anyone in the process that can take action against cp should, I don't care whether they are required to or not, I care whether they are allowed to."
Two points here. I don't think anyone would disagree that action should be taken when something illegal is suspected. I disagree with the action. Their obligation is to report it to someone who can legally do the right thing.

You don't care whether they are allowed to or not? WTF, you don't care about the rule of law? You know Sarettah, when "they" kick down your door for being filthy pornographer, just because your Baptist neighbour thinks it is disgusting, do not scream foul.

This extreme right wing radical solution never works. Hell burn the Reichstag and blame the Bolsheviks. It is obvious they are criminals. What is not always obvious is what is right and what is wrong. It is the basis of civilisation as we have come to enjoy it. You turn loose the dogs of vigilantiesim (sp?) and our freedom fractures beyond repair.

[sarettah]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

"You don't care whether they are allowed to or not? WTF, you don't care about the rule of law? You know Sarettah, when "they" kick down your door for being filthy pornographer, just because your Baptist neighbour thinks it is disgusting, do not scream foul.

Ok, I will try to do this in a non denigrating manner. Please reread what I wrote. I wrote that I care if they are allowed to. If they are allowed to take action, they should.

[softball]

Originally Posted by sarettah

Ok, I will try to do this in a non denigrating manner. Please reread what I wrote. I wrote that I care if they are allowed to. If they are allowed to take action, they should.

I will reciprocate the courtesy. Please re read what I said. I agree they should be allowed to take action. Indeed they should be compelled to take action like the Good Samaritan law. What I disagree with is the action taken. I thought I had made that perfectly clear.

[softball]

I posted this in another thread, but I think it is actually more appropriate here....

OK, here is a Free Speech Coalition opinion....excerpts....

"First Amendment attorney and Free Speech Coalition Chairman Jeffrey Douglas said the ID request is unprecedented, and more importantly, a violation of privacy laws. According to Douglas, the request is illegal, and also could have a chilling effect on the free speech of webmasters that deal in legal teen content.

“This is a blatant and absolute violation of privacy laws,” Douglas told XBIZ. “There’s absolutely no legal liability for the registrar if underage models appear on a website. DirectNIC is an officious intermeddler.”

Upon receiving a complaint of child pornography, there are legal courses of action for directNIC to take, Douglas said. Since it has no legal right to obtain personally identifiable information from the website’s models, the company should have alerted the proper legal authorities, but instead it decided to take the law into its own hands. "


"“The bottom line is that if [directNIC] received a complaint about child porn, there are a numerous avenues for them to report it to the proper legal authorities,” Douglas said. “DirectNIC has no remote prayer to legally justify their request. They are licensed to provide a service — not to police content. I would think that upon hearing this, most adult companies would transfer their domains [away from directNIC] immediately.”

"Douglas continued, “Again, under federal law they have no right to these documents, so now they have no protection from civil liability. They are immune from policing content under the law, but now by doing so they have created liability. DirectNIC is lawlessly intruding into their business.”

And the DirectNic Response:

"According to directNIC General Counsel David W. Nance, upon receiving a warranted complaint of child porn, the company takes action by either immediately shutting down the domain or conducting an investigation.

“In most cases when there is a confirmed report of child porn, directNIC takes immediate action and shuts down the domain names because it is blatantly obvious that the customer is offering child porn,” Nance told XBIZ. “However, not every case is clear cut. The letter was intended to notify the customer of the potential issue that was reported to directNIC. This does not mean that the domains contain child porn; it only means that an investigation was commenced — i.e., we want to make sure that we do not facilitate the trading of child porn online.”

[sarettah]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

I will reciprocate the courtesy. Please re read what I said. I agree they should be allowed to take action. Indeed they should be compelled to take action like the Good Samaritan law. What I disagree with is the action taken. I thought I had made that perfectly clear.

The second paragraph of what you wrote was what I was talking about.

[softball]

Originally Posted by sarettah

The second paragraph of what you wrote was what I was talking about.

Please just quote what you mean. I am getting lost in the quagmire. I will respond.

[sarettah]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

"You don't care whether they are allowed to or not? WTF, you don't care about the rule of law? You know Sarettah, when "they" kick down your door for being filthy pornographer, just because your Baptist neighbour thinks it is disgusting, do not scream foul.

There, at the beginning of that

[softball]

"I don't care whether they are required to or not, I care whether they are allowed to. DN was clearly allowed to do what they did and should be getting cheers for daring to buck the adult community in the name of getting rid of cp instead of getting boycott threats and such."

Perhaps a misinterpretation....however you also said DN was clearly allowed to do what they do....
The FSC disagrees, so obviously it is not clear....

"“DirectNIC has no remote prayer to legally justify their request. They are licensed to provide a service — not to police content. I would think that upon hearing this, most adult companies would transfer their domains [away from directNIC] immediately.”

"Douglas continued, “Again, under federal law they have no right to these documents, so now they have no protection from civil liability. They are immune from policing content under the law, but now by doing so they have created liability. DirectNIC is lawlessly intruding into their business.”

[softball]

Sounds like a pretty good argument to me. The shit could fly.

[softball]

Just in case, Sarettah, that you think this is in anyway related to how I feel about MikeAI's politics, it is not. I would feel exactly the same if any registrar did this.

[JR]

the interesting part of all this is that everyone gets upset at DirectNIC. i can understand that because of the insecurity that creates and no one wants to feel they can wake up one day and find their business shut down.

BUT... there is an entirely different side to this. thats the fact that this is still an industry that doesn't comply with the law, hasn't complied with past laws and fails miserably to police itself in any way, shape or form. in fact, the general attitude is generally one of outright defiance.

Boycotting DirectNIC, while maybe justified in the eyes of most, does nothing to address the real problems... its just theater to maintain a "feel good" and false sense of security people need to feel better about themselves and to go on about their day telling themselves that everything is ok. It ignores the fact that all registrars have this power. It ignores the fact that this is a possibility with any registrar. It ignores the fact that the Federal Government has been clear that they will do everything they can to pressure this business from every possible side. No one is 2257 compliant anyway and no matter what anyone thinks about legality or "right" and "wrong" a 38 year old mother of 3 stumbling across some of these TGP's isn't going to care much about docs when they see a consistent pattern of girls looking to be much younger than 18.

Additionally, there is a real problem. People produce and distribute CP. People abuse children. The problem with the "report it to the FBI" notion is that it does little to get the site shut down and put the person in jail and send a message. The registrar is the ONLY people that have the ability to stop someone in their tracks.. whether they should or not is obviously debatable... but notifying law enforcement brings into play 10-20 law enforcement agencies and various departments of those agencies worldwide that have to work together through impossible beurocracy and slow communication to investigate. it takes months. the dirty secret of the ASACP is what it has always been... it stops nothing. just like reporting a spammer stops nothing when the business model is already built on the fact that the site will be up for 3-4 weeks before moving. meanwhile.. children are being abused in this time. sites are up.

I dont like the idea of a registrar playing judge, jury and executioner... but a sad fact of law enforcement is that the registrar is more effective in stopping a CP related site.

[Hell Puppy]

JR is dead on.

But the problem with Directnic or anyone else playing vigilante here is there's no checks and balances. One party has all the power.

The sex.com case pretty well sets a precedent that domains are property, and there's something that really rubs me wrong about any individual party depriving another of use of their property without due process. And any Directnic kangaroo court or investigation is not my idea of due process.