Mexican Protest Site Censored by GoDaddy — with the U.S. Embassy's Help

[Judi Lynn]

Mexican Protest Site Censored by GoDaddy — with the U.S. Embassy's Help
March 4, 2014 | By Danny O'Brien

The Mexican website 1dmx.org (mirror here), was set up in the wake of a set of controversial December 1st 2012 protests against the inauguration of the new President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto. For a year, the site served as a source of information, news, discussion and commentary from the point of view of the protestors. As the anniversary of the protests approached, the site grew to include organized campaign against proposed laws to criminalize protest in the country, as well as preparations to document the results of a memorial protest, planned for December 1, 2013.

On December 2nd, 2013, the site disappeared offline. The United States host, GoDaddy, suspended the domain with no prior notice. GoDaddy told its owners that the site was taken down "as part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation." The office in charge of this investigation was listed as "Special Agent Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Embassy, Mexico City." (The contact email pointed to "ice.dhs.gov," implying that this agent was working as part of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement wing, who have been involved in curious domain name takedowns in the past.)

Luis Fernando García, 1dmx.org lawyer for the protestors, suspected that the call to bring down the site came from further afield than the U.S. embassy, and is suing several authorities in the Mexican courts to discover exactly which government agency passed on the order to the U.S. Embassy. Their court case, announced today, will continue to pursue the Mexican authorities to find the source of the demand, which the case contends violates Mexico's legal protections for freedom of expression.

If there are many questions to be answered by the Mexican authorities about this act of prior restraint on speech, there are no shortage of queries about the United States' involvement in this takedown. Why did GoDaddy take down content with the excuse of it being part of a legal investigation, when the company did not request or relay any formal judicial documents or an official court order? And why is the U.S. Embassy acting as a relay for an unclear legal process that resulted in censorship within the United States?

We look forward to following the result of the website owners' court case in Mexico, and to the responses of GoDaddy and the United States Embassy in Mexico City to this developing story.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/mexican-protest-site-censored-godaddy-us-embassys-help

[Judi Lynn]

1. US Embassy and Godaddy conspire to censor dissenting Mexican political site

US Embassy and Godaddy conspire to censor dissenting Mexican political site
Cory Doctorow at 7:00 pm Wed, Mar 5, 2014

Godaddy has censored a prominent Mexican political site that was critical of the government and a proposed law to suppress public protests. Godaddy says that it suspended 1dmx.org after a request from a "Special Agent Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Embassy, Mexico City." A lawyer for the site believes that the someone in the Mexican government asked the US embassy to arrange for the censorship, and is suing the Mexican government to discover the identity of the official who made the request.

Leaving aside the Mexican government corruption implied by this action, Americans should be outraged about the participation of the US Embassy in the suppression of political dissent. And, as always, Godaddy customers should be on notice that Godaddy is pretty much the worst domain registrar/hosting company in the world, with a long history of meekly knuckling under to absurd, legally dubious censorship claims from random law-enforcement and government agencies, and never, ever going to bat for its customers (I prefer Hover, one of Godaddy's major competitors).

Luis Fernando García, 1dmx.org lawyer for the protestors, suspected that the call to bring down the site came from further afield than the U.S. embassy, and is suing several authorities in the Mexican courts to discover exactly which government agency passed on the order to the U.S. Embassy. Their court case, announced today, will continue to pursue the Mexican authorities to find the source of the demand, which the case contends violates Mexico's legal protections for freedom of expression.

If there are many questions to be answered by the Mexican authorities about this act of prior restraint on speech, there are no shortage of queries about the United States' involvement in this takedown. Why did GoDaddy take down content with the excuse of it being part of a legal investigation, when the company did not request or relay any formal judicial documents or an official court order? And why is the U.S. Embassy acting as a relay for an unclear legal process that resulted in censorship within the United States?

http://boingboing.net/2014/03/05/us-embassy-and-godaddy-conspir.html

[merrily]

2. The Bill of Rights is a set of limits on actions by the US government and

is not limited to those residing in the US.

I don't know all the facts of this event, but that is an important fact to remember in a variety of situations.

Media and the USG may pretend there are huge distinctions between US citizens and others, but those distinctions do not appear in the Bill of Rights.

We cannot assume an inadvertent omission, either. The Framers and those who ratified the Constitution were both skilled users of the English language and acutely aware of being a US citizen versus being the citizen of another nation.

[Bacchus4.0]

3. the site is back up and the Bill of Rights does indeed only apply to US territory

The Bill of Rights only applies to those residing in the US, citizens or not. US law does not have extraterritorial application for the most part. Laws may require US officials to take some sort of action based on events and actions in another country but does regulate the actions within the other country itself.

I think the one exception is the Alien Torts act which has been used to pursue judgments against entities who operate in foreign countries and have a presence in the US but that law has been diminished for that purpose as per some recent SCOTUS rulings.



Not condoning any censorship that may have occurred on that website.

[merrily]

4. The plain wording of the Constitution says otherwise.

My prior post states why we cannot assume inadvertent omission of a limitation to US citizens or US residents.


ETA: You may be conflating long arm jurisdiction with unqualified Constitutional prohibitions. Also, this is not a matter of extra territorial application of law. The USG is the one limited and the USG is present in its embassies, wherever located.