In it ever increasing fervor to reign with supreme authority over all the communications of Americans, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently closed down, under a secret court order, 84,000 websites using the all-powerful justification of protecting children.
Basically, among a hand full of other sites seized by ICE was mooo.com which is used to resolve the domain names of the 84,000 other websites. Until the matter was rectified, visitors to sites that use mooo.com were greeted with the following banner:
“Advertisement, distribution, transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography constitute federal crimes that carry penalties for first time offenders of up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution.”
Nice work, ICE. You slandered thousands of people in the worst possible way and then have the nerve to brag about the great job you’ve done.
Anyone who thinks the United States is in some way different from any other country that wields absolute control over the internet is in for a surprise. The fact that the U.S. uses secrecy to shield itself from the public eye is ominous. There is, in fact, no way to know what the shuttered sites contain and the owners of those sites are not about to risk their legal defense by publicly refuting the government’s claims.
The mere mention of protecting children cuts the average IQ of the American public in half. Just like the 9/11 attacks had people stampeding to give up their Fourth Amendment rights, the mention of child porn has them stampeding to hand over their First Amendment protections.
The fact that this story barely gained any exposure in the mainstream media is a pretty powerful indication that the press can no longer be counted on to hold government accountable. In fact, if anything, the mainstream press is more a partner of the government than a watchdog over it.
