Who needs the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act (COICA)? Not the US government, that’s for sure. This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the US Department of Homeland Security seized the domains of as many as 70 allegedly illegal file-sharing websites under a seizure warrant issued by a US District Court.
ICE officials widely acknowledged execution of the court-ordered seizure warrants but refused to provide additional details, citing an ongoing investigation. Ben Sisario, writing for the New York Times, reports “the takedown notices are similar to those that went up on nine sites in June as part of an initiative against internet counterfeiting and piracy that the agency called Operation in Our Sites.” When ICE announced that initiative, John T. Morton, the agency’s assistant secretary joined with representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a trade group, to announce the start of a long-term operation against online piracy.
COICA was approved unanimously last week by the US Senate Judiciary Committee. COICA, if it becomes law, would mandate a government-run blacklist where domain name service (DNS), credit card processing, and online advertising are blocked from websites that infringe on the intellectual property rights of others.
Apparently ICE and at least one District Court believe they already have all the law they need to seize domain names on the internet. As Dan Gillmor astutely observes, “Homeland Security becomes enforcement arm of the entertainment cartel.”
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has pledged to block COICA. Aside from being overly broad—the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) refers to COICA as “an internet censorship bill”—the proposed legislation is totally ineffective. Sisario cites one of the operators of the seized domains as saying “his server was up and running at a different address.”
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