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Operation Protect Our Children (also called Operation Save Our Children) was a 2011 joint operation by
Operation Protect Our Children (also called Operation Save Our Children) was a 2011 joint operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the United States from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration tha ...
, and the U.S. Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...
's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
and Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section to execute "seizure warrants against 10 domain names of websites engaged in the advertisement and distribution of child pornography". The enforcement action was spearheaded by ICE's Cyber Crimes Center (C3).
One of the domains seized, mooo.com, belonged to the DNS provider FreeDNS. FreeDNS stated that on "February 11th at around 9:30 PM PST mooo.com (the most popular shared domain at afraid.org) was suspended at the registrar level." All 84,000 of mooo.com's subdomains were subsequently redirected to a warning which stated:
This domain name has been seized by ICE – Homeland Security Investigations pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court under the authority of Title 18 U.S.C. 2254.Service to mooo.com was restored on February 13, 2011 at around 7:15 p.m, although FreeDNS admins noted that it would take up to 3 days for
Advertisement, distribution, transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography constitute federal crimes that carry penalties for first time offenders of up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution.
domain propagation
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned t ...
. This meant that the affected sites would be unusable and would continue to display the child pornography accusation.
It was initially unclear whether the entire mooo.com domain was shut down due to clerical error or intentionally, ICE later apologized for the seizure stating, "During the course of a joint DHS and DOJ law enforcement operation targeting 10 websites providing explicit child pornographic content, a higher level domain name and linked sites were inadvertently seized for a period of time." The excessive seizure has led to criticism of the DOJ's ex parte
In law, ''ex parte'' () is a Latin term meaning literally "from/out of the party/faction of" (name of party/faction, often omitted), thus signifying "on behalf of (name)". An ''ex parte'' decision is one decided by a judge without requiring all ...
warrant process and its possible abuse.
See also
*Think of the children
"Think of the children" (also "What about the children?") is a cliché that evolved into a rhetorical tactic. In the literal sense, it refers to children's rights (as in discussions of child labor). In debate, however, it is a plea for pity t ...
* Censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
Notes
References
{{Reflist Law enforcement operations in the United States Child pornography crackdowns Cybercrime 2011 in the United States