Godaddy has censored a prominent Mexican political site that was critical of the government and a proposed law to suppress public protests. Godaddy says that it suspended 1dmx.org after a request from a "Special Agent Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Embassy, Mexico City." A lawyer for the site believes that the someone in the Mexican government asked the US embassy to arrange for the censorship, and is suing the Mexican government to discover the identity of the official who made the request.
Leaving aside the Mexican government corruption implied by this action, Americans should be outraged about the participation of the US Embassy in the suppression of political dissent. And, as always, Godaddy customers should be on notice that Godaddy is pretty much the worst domain registrar/hosting company in the world, with a long history of meekly knuckling under to absurd, legally dubious censorship claims from random law-enforcement and government agencies, and never, ever going to bat for its customers (I prefer Hover, one of Godaddy's major competitors).
Luis Fernando García, 1dmx.org lawyer for the protestors, suspected that the call to bring down the site came from further afield than the U.S. embassy, and is suing several authorities in the Mexican courts to discover exactly which government agency passed on the order to the U.S. Embassy. Their court case, announced today, will continue to pursue the Mexican authorities to find the source of the demand, which the case contends violates Mexico's legal protections for freedom of expression.
If there are many questions to be answered by the Mexican authorities about this act of prior restraint on speech, there are no shortage of queries about the United States' involvement in this takedown. Why did GoDaddy take down content with the excuse of it being part of a legal investigation, when the company did not request or relay any formal judicial documents or an official court order? And why is the U.S. Embassy acting as a relay for an unclear legal process that resulted in censorship within the United States?
Mexican Protest Site Censored by GoDaddy — with the U.S. Embassy's Help
[Danny O'Brien/EFF]
