The US government seized b-ok.cc
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©(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
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