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It appears that Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division, and their incredibly sloppy domain seizure operations, have moved on to the next phase -- as was promised by both ICE boss, John Morton, and IP Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel. The timing on this one is particularly bizarre -- and politically stupid.
And the timing is especially ridiculous, given that the US has been pushing very, very hard for Spain to implement a new copyright law, driven in large part by Hollywood. With many in Spain already furious about US meddling in their own copyright laws, I can't imagine that having US customs agents reaching across the Atlantic to just out and out seize a Spanish company's domain name is going to go over very well.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government. Created in 2003 through a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, ICE now has more than 20,000 employees in more than 400 offices in the United States and 46 foreign countries.
The Cyber Crimes Section (CCS) is responsible for developing and coordinating investigations, Internet-based immigration and customs violations...
Intellectual Property Rights — CCS has encountered thousands of websites based in the United States, as well as foreign countries that are engaged in the sale of counterfeit merchandise, including music and software, via the Internet. The CCS continues to work closely with the National IPR Coordination Center, the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section at the Department of Justice and industry representatives to identify websites responsible for the sale of the counterfeit items