WAR: Web Hosting Company to be Prosecuted for Internet Hate Crimes, page 1

posted on Mar, 27 2005 @ 02:32 PM

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The government of the Netherlands is looking to prosecute the owners of 357Hosting for spreading hatred. 357Hosting has been the provider of space for Islamists websites that have often carried a radical message. Some of the more infamous sites hosted by 357 Hosting include Albasrah.net, Hamasonline.com and Shareeah.org. 357Hosting has also hosted the official website of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Zarqawi's splinter group. Many of the beheading videos of foreigners in Iraq have been hosted in 357Hosting's servers.

www.msnbc.msn.com
Intelligence and law-enforcement agencies are learning that tracking down the operators of Islamic terrorist Web sites is like trying to locate a floating craps game: here today, gone tomorrow. During the past year, investigators in America and Europe watched as a business called 357Hosting, based near Utrecht, the Netherlands, became the officially registered Internet host for several notorious militant Islamic Web pages and bulletin boards, including sites that disseminated videos of beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq and messages from Qaeda leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. The public prosecutor's office in Utrecht tells NEWSWEEK that it has opened a criminal investigation into possible Internet hate crimes.

But the former operator of the hosting company claims that ownership of the firm has already moved out of the Netherlands. In e-mails, 357Hosting's former chief, who asked to be called "Awad," acknowledged that his business last year hosted Web sites "that may be deemed as radical," including sites that glorify the actions of Iraqi militants and others promoting the Palestinian resistance.

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A spokesman for 357 has said the company no longer operates out of the Netherlands, and has been sold to another company based in Jordan. The spokesman would not reveal the name of the company.

All of this highlights the difficulty in tracking down the individuals who operate these sites. Hosting companies across the global, including within the United States, have been used to spread the radical Islamist message. Even if investigators are able to track down the owners of the domains, they are unlikely to find the actual operators.

In some instances, 357Hosting offered low cost, or free services to the operators of these Islamist sites. While they haven't been accused of condoning the message these sites spread, they are believed to have subsidized the message.

paranoia

posted on Mar, 27 2005 @ 03:54 PM

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This is the beginning of a much bigger culling the internet will see. The internet will become, soon enough, just as "free" as the mainstream media.

Muaddib

posted on Mar, 27 2005 @ 04:55 PM

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Originally posted by paranoia
This is the beginning of a much bigger culling the internet will see. The internet will become, soon enough, just as "free" as the mainstream media.

I actually see this, finally, as the start of the separation between real freedom, which comes with responsibilities, and anarchy. Lately the line that has separated the two has become blurred as people use freedom as an excuse for anarchy. Excuses that some people are making, thinking that freedom gives them the right to spread their hatred, and messages of violence and destruction of others that are different from them.

Many people are using freedom as an excuse for spreading their messages of hatred, violence, and destruction.

When the messages and opinions some people have, condone the use of violence, and the taking of life of others just because they are different, these views and opinions are looking for the suppression of the right to life and equal treatment for others, for differences of race, gender, or creed.

I say well done for the government of Netherlands for doing this.

---edited for errors---

[edit on 27-3-2005 by Muaddib]