engine - 3:22 pm on Sep 7, 2012 (gmt 0)

U.S. Congress Concerned Over Domain Seizures [news.cnet.com]

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is seizing domains and taking down URLs in the name of copyright infringement, but its tactics are worrying certain members of Congress.

"We are concerned about your Departments' seizure of domain names under Operation In Our Sites, launched in November 2010," the letter said. "Our concern centers on your Department's methods, and the process given, when seizing the domain names of websites whose actions and content are presumed to be lawful, protected speech." The three Congress members -- Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Jared Polis -- and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, point to one case that exemplifies a situation where Homeland Security got it wrong. Over a year ago, the government took down a hip-hop Web site owned by a man who goes by Dajaz1 on the basis that it linked to copyrighted songs. However, the links didn't actually infringe on copyrights.