UK Police To Get Major New Powers To Seize Domains

Stoobalou writes "British Police forces could soon have the power to seize any domain associated with criminal activity, under new proposals published today by UK domain registrar Nominet. At present, Nominet has no clear legal obligation to ensure that .uk domains are not used for criminal activities. That situation may soon change, if proposals from the Serious and Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) are accepted."

Laughable

[c0lo]

TFA:

Two weeks ago, Fitwatch, a site dedicated to campaigning against what it sees as heavy-handed practices by police surveillance units, was taken down by its UK-based web hosting company,

With its domain name suspended, the only way for visitors to find a rogue site would be to type in its lengthy (and decidedly less memorable) numeric IP address.

This shows how well prepared is the british police to deal with matters regarding the internet: I reckon they never heard of the hosts file or, for an URL only, favorites.

Such simple minds... life for them must be a permanent bliss.

Re:Just out of curiosity,

[davester666]

Yes, because they will present links to content which are covered by copyright's, patent's and trademark's.

Police State

[im just cannonfodder]

The imperial march further into the police state continues, soon you'll lose your right to trial by jury, be logged on some huge data base, sections of the population will be segregated, forced to move from the desirable areas into slums then the trains to the gas/torture chambers will start.......

Illegal - yes; irritant - no

[Alain Williams]

If a domain is really being used for illegal activity then I can support this. However: if it is just an irritant to the police/government/... then leave it well alone. Nomient is asking

whether safeguards are necessary (an appeals process, for example)

-- boggle! Of course there must be an appeals process.

The UK is becoming worse, there is a proposal by the home secretary to throw someone out of his house even if there was not enough evidence to charge [bbc.co.uk]; this is going to be abused by wifes who want a divorce -- get the bloke out on made up complaints of violence; by the time that he would be allowed back in she will have started the legal process and grabbed the property and stopped him seeing the kids.

Dear police,

[rew]

Dear Police,

Please be informed that not just one but multiple criminals use the domains Hotmail.co.uk and yahoo.co.uk. Please disable these immediately to prevent further crimes from occurring. (and they annoy the hell out of me).

Serious and Organized Crime?

[Compaqt]

What do you want to bet that serious and well-planned out crimes won't include:

Goldman Sachs UK (where to start)
Paypal UK [paypal.co.uk] (seizure of users' money without refund)
Microsoft UK [microsoft.co.uk] (organized monopoly abuse)
Intel UK [intel.co.uk] (organized monopoly abuse)
and anyone else who's a paymaster?

Re:Laughable

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA - So your definition of a sophisticated mind does not encompass one that can deal with murdered children, mob control, terrorism or any other of the myriad issues a modern police officer has to deal with.. in your world if you are not IT savvy you are a "simpleton"? What an infantile, one dimensional little mind that you have. Grow up, fool.

There's a problem with the summary

[ZDRuX]

"British Police forces could soon have the power to seize any domain associated with activity that they assume may or may not be criminal, under new proposals published today by UK domain registrar Nominet.

There, fixed for clarity and better understanding.

Re:A big deal

[flimflammer]

I wouldn't necessarily call it free under those terms. If I can get in trouble for merely saying something, I don't think it's really free speech. Freer speech than in some areas, but not necessarily free at it's foundation.

Re:It has started already

[abigsmurf]

There's nothing wrong with the police asking. It's the host's fault for caving in without a court order.

It's just like there's nothing wrong with police asking if they can look inside your house without a warrant. you just say no and they have to go get a warrant if they have good reason to need to search your house (unless of course there's evidence of a crime in progress)

Re:A big deal

[h4rm0ny]

There was a sort of shift in both British governmental policy and public attitudes combined with an inevitability of other nations gaining their independence. I guess the best way to put it might be that Britain saw the writing on the wall early enough that they decided to be smart about things and let go semi-gracefully. Take India as a case in point. There was no way that the British were going to be able to maintain their control over that country. The Indians could only be goverend in the first place because they weren't well organized and they had non-representative governments that could be suborned. The British government have always been bastards, but they've rarely been stupid except in the most enlightened frame of reference. The British had put down various resistance movements before in India (quite brutally), but when India as a whole started to say "no!", the British said: "okay, let's be friends". Many other cases are variations on that. The general policy was: "let's try and make the jump from ruler to leader". Success was variable and imperfect, but it preserved a lot of profitable trade for Britain, which was what it cared about most of all, it had the sympathy of the British public and, quite frankly, it made a lot more sense than anything else. Britain is a small land. It had the advantages of a well-organized, industrial-level populace and a fantastic Navy. They seized that opportunity and worked it till it was played out, then moved on when running costs became too high (rebellions, industrial action, et al.). Note that this is only the most general description. Posters could make a dozen small counter-examples of ugly instances of disengagement. The disintegration of India into India and Pakistan is one of the modern age's great tragedies.

It is wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a misuse of power. Plain and simple.

Re:Laughable

[dunkelfalke]

The coppers dealing with murdered children are not the same ones who are doing the mob control, and those of them who deal with internet are again different people with different specialisations.
So those who are actually responsible for the thing this discussion is about, should be IT savvy. If they are not, then they are simpletons indeed.

Re:It has started already

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing wrong with the police asking. It's the host's fault for caving in without a court order.

Sorry, but are you really that stupid? Of course there's also something wrong with the police asking! Yes, the hoster is to blame for caving in, but the police - the ones who actually made a demand that's decidedly unethical and quite possibly illegal, one that tramples the principles of free speech, freedom of opinion, and democracy and liberty - are blameless? They did nothing wrong?

Words fail me.

Re:A big deal

[delinear]

That's pretty much the same everywhere, though - whether it's enshrined in a written constitution or not. Every country has their own limits on speech, that might mean you can't speak out against the government, or it might mean you're not allowed to incite religious hatred, or make sexist comments. The UK is pretty free in terms of being able to criticise the government (verbally, at least, let's not get into the stupid laws on public assembly, etc), but does have the other limits that are supposedly there to help us all live together in a varied society. By your definition, I challenge you to find any country in the whole world that has truly free speech.

Re:Illegal - yes; irritant - no

[Alain Williams]

You miss my point -- all too often the abuse is claimed just to get the bloke out of the house. Very often is has not happened. If there is an allegation the police will remove the man, in 40% of cases it is the woman who is violent -- they still remove the man.

If there is real violence then it must be dealed with, what happens today is all too often one sided.