Mozilla Defies the Department of Homeland Security
Mozilla declared that it will not agree to a US Department of Homeland Security request to get rid of a Firefox extension yesterday. The extension in question is MAFIAA Fire.
What this particular extension does is redirect users to working sites set up to replace domains seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It is believed that an antipiracy campaign by the DHS has seen reduced effectiveness due to this.
Harvey Anderson, vice president and general counsel for Mozilla, noted that this is a problem for the DHS as it is trying to get rid of these sites for good.
The ICE Homeland Security Investigations unit alleged that the add-on circumvented a seizure order DHS had already obtained against a number of domains.
Experts in the field of free speech deem these seizures as a possible violation of freedom of speech protections in the US Constitution. Nevertheless, ICE has managed to close down a considerable number of websites in recent months under the suspicion of them illegally distributing movies, music, or counterfeit products.
Anderson continued to note the following:
To date we’ve received no response from Homeland Security nor any court order. While content companies see obvious reasons to keep these sites offline, Mozilla sees it as a question of government censorship, and whether agreeing to these informal requests might somehow “threaten the open Internet”.
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Being passionate about software, Armin joined FavBrowser.com in early 2011 and has been actively writing ever since. Having accepted the challenge, he also enjoys watching anime, indulging in good books, staying fit and healthy, and trying new things.
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mozilla have balls, cool.
Thumbs up to Mozilla!
Meanwhile, Google is against the do-no-track header because their business model relies on the users not knowing whatever hell their doing with their data.
And then they try to promote their browser as being somehow “better”… What?
And Mozilla still takes Google money. I think Mozilla’s position should be clear – Google is evil, we don’t need your money, go away. We will go with Bing, because Bing is so much better. Microsoft wil never mine user data, Microsoft is not evil. But if MS is evil, then Mozilla should stick only to donations. But of course such future vision is foolish.. Mozilla like other corporations is double-faced when money get involved.. *sigh*