Nominet Plans to Let Police Control UK Internet

Nominet Plans to Let Police Control UK Internet

order-order.com

Nominet – the quasi-private entity which controls the .uk part of the internet - plans to allow the police to take down any website without recourse to the Courts. This is at the request of the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.nominet.org.uk
www.nominet.org.uk

A measure of protection or erosion of civil liberties?

Along with Homeland Security in the US, the UK establishment are seeking the ability to block any website, without a court order. As we've seen with other measures in net security, the line between reasonable action against criminal activity and infringement of civil liberties is very thin.

What I find most interesting is that the briefing does not mention any aspect of oversight.

order-order.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

It can't be a coincidence that in the last week Homeland Security shut down 70 websites for copyright/trademark infringement (allegedly) and now the British police want to have the same power. Can't help but think that the PTB have at last woken up to the power the internet gives people and are determined to have the power to silence. I think they will fail but it seems they intend to give it their best shot.

The BBC are reporting that at the moment it is just a proposal.

Nominet said the idea was only a proposal and invited people to join the debate on the form of the final policy.

Which is borne out by this statement below from the Nominet website.

The group will discuss whether proposals should be put forward to change Nominet's Terms and Conditions to give a contractual basis to suspend domains where Nominet has reasonable grounds to believe they are being used to commit a crime

For further details please see link in op

reply to post by Thoriumisbest


I have to agree. The governments of the 'free world' have woken up to how freely information can be distributed on the net and how little control they currently have. Not to mention the trouble Wikileaks has brought the US administration.

What is really a concern,is that there will be no judicial oversight.
If the proposals are accepted.The police will be allowed to shut down websites on suspicion of criminal activety.
There will be no court issued warrant and no court order.
Websites will be shut down with little or no evidence to support the claims of illegal activety.
And as yet their is no details of WHO makes the decision.
If you support the right to a free internet please use the link in the op.It does contain an email address and they are looking for people to tell them what they think.
Who knows maybe we can make a difference

Too right. The nominet site does provide an opportunity to comment:

If you have any comments on this issue please email [email protected], and include the title, "Dealing with domain names used in connection with criminal activity" in the subject line. Please note: your comments will be fed into the Issue Group and may be referenced.