It's analogous to the police acting on a warrant to
close a store front selling counterfeit goods
There is no warrant. This is not a civilian police force acting legally. This is an arm of the federal government acting unilaterally implementing authoritarian control over public communications and information.
I'm amazed that Americans are comfortable with their leaders going down this road. It's been done before and has rarely ended well.
It confuses me that this particular comment was found objectionable by at least six people. You guys are weird, sometimes.
Here is an example of a warrant of seizure issued by the United States District Court, Southern District of New York to "Any Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent or any other law enforcement officer authorized by law" to seize certain domains:
I apologize for not expending the energy to produce a copy of every warrant for every domain ever seized, but I am not personally burdened with such indomitable doubts as to their existence that others seem to be.
Thanks for finding this. I was under the impression the FBI was just moving in like thugs.
Still reading this warrant, it is so vague what the charges are. And I wonder, among all the people that had domains seized, were any found not-guilty and had their domains returned? Somehow I doubt it.
A seizure warrant, as signed by a judge. (Compare "search warrant", "arrest warrant").
Nobody is being charged with a crime.
That's not what a warrant is. Warrants are issued on the basis of probable cause. You probably understand this already with regard to search warrants: a prosecutor doesn't have to have filed charges against a person before the police can obtain a search warrant in the course of investigating the crime. The police only need to show that there is cause to conduct the search.
But more to the point of people not being charged: I'm not conversant in every relevant detail, but I presume the reason nobody is being charged in these cases is that the owners of these domains are unknown and outside of the US, besides. But again: nobody being charged doesn't mean warrants weren't issued for the seizures. The two are not the same thing.
Please don't assume every American is comfortable with this. On the contrary, I and most of my friends are fucking pissed. I've written my representatives, but I doubt it will do any good. I feel pretty helpless honestly.
Revolutions (and maybe more importantly: the threat of revolt) have brought us quite far from the days of absolute rulers that could do whatever they liked to the population.
In other words: things will end up different because revolutions (amongst other change agents) have brought us to where we are, which still is a lot better than were we started.
I'm amazed that Americans are comfortable with their leaders going down this road. It's been done before and has rarely ended well.