Websites being sued, blogs being shut down. I think we are missing the bigger picture here.
My point is that there's no "bigger picture", at least in the context of FR being sued for alleged copyright violations and fair use, vs. the other site inadvertently hosting bomb-making tips and an assassination hit list.
Even the title of that article was wrong: law enforcement didn't shut it down -- it was done so by the hosting company after being notified about the content. More from the article I cited:
Marr said the FBI contacted Burst.net and sent a Voluntary Emergency Disclosure of Information request. The letter said terrorist material, which presented a threat to American lives, was found on a server hosted by Burst.net and asked for specific information about the people involved.
In the FBI's letter, the agency included a clause that says Web hosts and Internet service providers may voluntarily elect to shut down the sites of customers involved in these kinds of situations. The Burst.net employee who handled the request erroneously believed that the FBI would want to seize the customer's server and thus the employee cut off service to Blogetery. Marr said the FBI, however, never asked for the server.
Marr said that regardless of the mix-up, Blogetery's service was terminated because bomb-making tips and a "hit list" are an obvious and absolute violation of its terms of service.
The one blog taken down the owner appeared to be a gamer. 70,000 blogs taken down due to bomb making information? Don’t you think that would warrant a big fed investigation?
My original point was takedown of the blogs without cease and desist orders and I feel it is where we are headed under obama. With these new Fair Use lawsuits, it appears to be yet another way to take down opposing websites. Or scare the h*** out of posters/blog/website owners as to what they do online.
I don’t think we have the full story here.
Just like the attempted terrorist attacks that fail, they are but a warning to us. Or a attempt to see how far they (thugs in charge) can go. How many other sites will get the fed notice and get scared and shut the blogs down? Please keep me informed if you get any new info.