So If you don't know about the site. It was a site to get free text books and reading material. Essentially a library archive where any person could get access to any book that was put on the internet for free(novels, poems, short stories, textbooks, etc...) However the U.S. gov shut the site down under two U.S. fed laws. U.S. Code 18 subsection 981(b) (which is the first U.S. code claimed) states:
"Any property, real or personal, within the jurisdiction of the United States, constituting, derived from, or traceable to, any proceeds obtained directly or indirectly from an offense against a foreign nation, or any property used to facilitate such an offense, if the offense— (i)involves trafficking in nuclear, chemical, biological, or radiological weapons technology or material, or the manufacture, importation, sale, or distribution of a controlled substance (as that term is defined for purposes of the Controlled Substances Act), or any other conduct described in section 1956(c)(7)(B); (ii)would be punishable within the jurisdiction of the foreign nation by death or imprisonment for a term exceeding 1 year; and (iii)would be punishable under the laws of the United States by imprisonment for a term exceeding 1 year, if the act or activity constituting the offense had occurred within the jurisdiction of the United States."
Keep in mind the site was for textbooks. If someone uploaded sensitive material on a privately owned site, then they themselves have a breach that they are taking out on private citizens.
The second subsection that's claimed is U.S. Code 21 subsection 853(f) which states:
"The Government may request the issuance of a warrant authorizing the seizure of property subject to forfeiture under this section in the same manner as provided for a search warrant. If the court determines that there is probable cause to believe that the property to be seized would, in the event of conviction, be subject to forfeiture and that an order under subsection (e) may not be sufficient to assure the availability of the property for forfeiture, the court shall issue a warrant authorizing the seizure of such property.'
So what I'm interpreting from all of this is the U.S. government sees free knowledge as a danger because they literally shut this site down under the guise of a national threat. And then if you read the second U.S. code they claim, it essentially says that they can take whatever they want as long as they want it bad enough. So free knowledge is terrorism and those who give free knowledge are subject to forfeiture?
I'm not without fault however, so if there is someone who can interpret this in a barney style way that way I could understand it better, please feel free
Not familiar with the site, but it sounds like some one uploaded something directly related either to WMDs or the manufacture of drugs. Otherwise I suspect they would have used the provisions related to copyright infringement.
Knowledge related to both are publicly available, and the tech is simple enough that even a southern high schooler could build something truely nasty, but if it is too directly related…. Well, the people that do the day to day work of the government aren’t completely stupid. The best they can do, though, is try to keep the knowledge out of sight, out of mind.
My point is that private citizens are having to pay for what obviously would be a breach in their infrastructure. THEY picked the wrong person for the job and the wrong person did the wrong thing, and now the private citizens have to pay for it. I'm not a lawyer, a social scientist, or a high ranking knowledgeable gov't official, but even I can see something fishy has happened and now the every man has to pay for it. IMO that's a pretty typical response when there's a leak. People who are minding their own business and just trying to live life have to pay for the gov't's negligence. We can blame the individual, but the people who have access to that material are required to go through rigorous screening. Why do private citizens have to pay for the governments failure?
You should’ve read what 1956(7)(b) is… money laundering.
There was deemed enough evidence that the site was tied to money laundering to execute a forfeiture.
That’s it.
ok