U.S. Government begins censoring the global Internet: Is Wikileaks next?
PSA: The U.S. Government has begun censoring the internet for all citizens around the globe, regardless of nationality.
The U.S. government has seized the domain names of 70 websites after complaints had been filed against them. The government went to ICANN, the body that is essentially in charge of the oversight of global domain names. This means anything with a “.X”, they are in charge of managing. What is scary is that ICANN is in charge of the globe’s ISPs, meaning that because the U.S. government used the organization to seize those websites, the U.S. government is effectively censoring the internet for all users across the glove.
To be fair, the websites that were seized by the U.S. government were of an illegal nature due to copyright infringement. Alas, Wikileaks could be considered of similar stature as leaking government documents is certainly not legal. Also, not all nations necessarily recognize copyrights held in the U.S., so censoring the globe is rather extreme.
This is a scary move for all who use the internet, as now the U.S. government has set a precedent of being willing to censor the internet for all countries.
First they came for the torrent websites…
