Steve Marshall is a British citizen living in Spain who runs a travel website... so clearly, right there, he deserved everything the US Department of the Treasury could throw at him. Which in this case was seizing Steve's domain name and forcing his registrar to shut the site down without notice or compensation. And refusing to release the domain name back to him. Whaat!?
It seemed that this European Union citizen had made the United States Department of the Treasury angry by offering anyone who was interested in the literature or history of Cuba to visit the country. So there it is... Cuba! He's obviously a filthy stalinist, communist agent in league with the mighty power that is the Cuban state. Guilty as charged.
According to the DoT press release statement,"This travel provider is not only a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people, but it also facilitates the evasion of U.S. sanction policy."
Now wait a minute, since when did the reach of the United States DoT extend beyond its borders into a sovereign member state of the European Union? That'd be since never. It's a flagrant breach of international law, without due process.
However, despite the business of Mr Marshall being conducted entirely in Europe, with his servers located in the Bahamas, his domain registrar, eNom was located in the US. Pressure was applied to comply with US foreign policy towards the island of Cuba, and the shut down followed.
But hang on there... doesn't the United States of America like to think of itself as a place that doesn't censor people online, like those other US trading partners, China, or oh, I don't know, Saudi Arabia maybe or even Sudan - you know, those other bastions of democracy that have high education levels and superb health services. Oh wait, that's Cuba. Never mind. You get the picture.
Come on United States... this was a bad thing. An anti-democratic thing. A first amendment thing.
Oh, one more thing: eNom. Do not use this domain registrar if you value your property.
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2 comments:
I'm shocked but not surprised.
I'm shocked too. And notwithstanding any personal antipathy [or not] toward Cuba, this is way beyond international law as to be not funny.
Good job the "surge" is still going on and there isn't any troops to spare, or Spain would've had to contend with US marines landing on the beaches of Malaga to forcibly rendition this poor guy.
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