Tag Archives: US Department of Homeland Security
Staff At RIAA and Homeland Security Caught Downloading Torrents
YouHaveDownloaded is a website that lists information on more than 50 million users and what they have downloaded. This is a fraction of all public BitTorrent downloads.
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US Judge Rules: Feds Shuttering Websites Does Not Go Against 1st Amendment
US District Court Judge Paul Crotty has ruled that the 1st Amendment does not prevent the government from seizing web domains. The issue was raised by the ICE’s shuttering of a sports streaming website called Rojadirecta.com. The owners of Rojadirecta claimed that because the site contained some legal content, seizing the website counted as a suppression of free speech. The judge disagreed, stating that “the main purpose of the Rojadirecta websites […] is to catalogue links to the copyrighted athletic events – any argument to the contrary is clearly disingenuous.” [Gizmodo]
Homeland Security Wants Mozilla To Take Down MafiaaFire Redirector Add-On
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has sent Mozilla a take-down request for the Firefox add-on called MafiaaFire Redirector. MafiaaFire Redirector allows Firefox users to access websites, whose domain names were taken down by the government over copyright issues. Mozilla responded by asking the government why they should remove the add-on. About two weeks have gone by without a response.
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Department of Homeland Security May Send Terror Alerts On Facebook and Twitter
The color codes indicating a potential terror attack will be eliminated. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will likely send out elevated and imminent warnings on Facebook and Twitter. Some of the warnings may be withheld from Facebook in order to prevent exposure to an intelligence op. The system will be replaced on April 27th.
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Categories Facebook, Twitter, US Department of Homeland Security
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Government Shutting Down Secure Border Initiative Virtual Fence In Favor Of Human Patrol and Drones
The federal government is canceling the multi-billion dollar plan for building a virtual fence along the southwestern border between Mexico and the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security said that they are shutting down the Secure Border Initiative network (SBInet). Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that the virtual fence was costing too much and was not achieving much.
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Government Cracked Down On Torrent Websites To Prevent Cyber Monday Sales Losses
About 82 torrent and copyright-infringing websites were taken down by Homeland Security in the past week. The Torrent-Finder.com owner complained that his website was taken without a court complaint. The government has justified why they took down websites without notice. It turns out that the government shut down the 82 websites as part of an effort called “Operation In Our Sites II.”
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Torrent-Finder Domain Name Seized Without Complaint Or Court Notice
The U.S. government has been proactive about taking down torrent websites. ICE – Homeland Security Investigations seized the domain of BitTorrent meta-search engine Torrent-Finder.com without giving them a court notice or complaint.
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U.S. Department Of Homeland Security Rules Document Leaks After Detroit Terrorist Incident
Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab is the 23 year old terrorist that attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight in Detroit last week. Umar attempted to set off a device when he was aboard a plane that was preparing to land in the Detroit airport arriving from Amsterdam. The passengers and flight crew put out the flames that he was covered in and subdued him until the flight landed.
The passenger was taken to the University of Michigan hospital where he was treated for the burns. After that he was taken to a prison in Milan, Michigan. The device that Umar used involved pentaerythritol (PETN). A syringe was also recovered by the FBI from the flight which was also being used with the device. Umar was believed to be trained by Al-Qaeda terrorists in Yemen. Umar was previously an engineering student at University College in London.
Immediately after this incident took place, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Acting Administrator Gale Rossides sent out a memo about extra precautions to take:
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MySpace Adds A Hurricane Tracking Widget; Partners with Department of Homeland Security
“What you are seeing us doing with DHS and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is the beginning of bigger things to come in the future,” stated MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam.
News Corporation (NYSE:NWS) subsidiary, MySpace.com has partnered with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to provide information regarding hurricanes through the social network. This is especially important right now as many of those in New Orleans are evacuating in anticipation of being struck by Hurricane Gustav.
There is a widget available for all MySpace users that links their profile pages to federal information about how to find dislocated hurrican victims and how to help any victims. There is also ways to track of any other upcoming hurricanes.
“Tragedy often inspires people to do great things and this has happened here,” added Nigam. “It’s powerful and it’s using the power of the Web 2.0 media world to its fullest.”
The AFP has additional details.