[Chapter-delegates] PIR and wikileaks.ORG

[Zaid Ali]

Instead of focusing on Wikileaks and its DNS problems I want to step back a
bit and think about protection of minority in such situations. We also
recently saw a situation where ICE seized BitTorrent meta search engine
domain without need for COICA. The common thing I see here is the "little
guy" either strong armed or in fear of being strong armed fail to protect an
Internet users rights. It is easy to say that one violated the terms of
service so I will disconnect you but when the strong arm is twisting you
with hazy laws I think there should be a system in place to help the "little
guy" support the end users right. My challenge to the ISOC/ICANN community
is should there be such a system of protection where the registry can get
help from an Internet governance body in such situations? Does it make
sense? Is it feasible?

In the case where USG tried to strong arm Google to remove "terrorist"
videos from YouTube we saw that Google was able to say no and preserve the
first amendment. If it was Hulu that was strong armed I think the situation
would have been different. The DNS and First amendment situations are
different but on a parallel path and we might not want to get into the
business of first amendment since there are lawyers for that but I do feel
that there needs to be some sort of system in place to help the minority
Internet user.

Zaid