Feds blacklist 'illegal' Cuban Web sites

[Deja Q]

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-5780117.html

The U.S. Treasury Department has blacklisted more than 60 Cuba-centric sites, many maintained by a travel company called Tour & Marketing International. The last update to the list was published by the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control on June 30.

Certain travel-oriented Web sites made it to the verboten list because they provide easy access to Cuba for Americans who choose to break the law, the OFAC says. While visiting the sites may be permitted, downloading software from them probably isn't.

The reason lies in a section of federal law prohibiting people living under U.S. jurisdiction from doing business with those on the OFAC's list of "specially designated nationals," a category that also includes known terrorists, narcotics traffickers and rogue regimes, such as Iran, Iraq and Syria. (Many of the Cuba sites have been on the list since a December update.)

It's already illegal to go to Cuba without a special Treasury Department-issued license, typically granted based on educational or professional purposes. Tourism, according to federal guidelines, is not allowed. Once licensed, travelers must make travel arrangements with an organization chosen from a list of OFAC-approved agencies.

But if booking travel with an unauthorized dealer is already illegal, then is booking travel through a company also on OFAC's verboten list an even greater offense? Lawyers aren't sure.

Article has more...

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. a category that also includes known terrorists,

I have banned myself from the Fort Benning website.

I must admit, it is a great looking site (I peeked), but now I have banned myself from it for the following reasons.

This is the banned site. http://www.benningmwr.com/


This is the site that helped me ban myself.

www.Soaw.org
Within six weeks of introducing a new bill in Congress to close the SOA/ WHINSEC, one hundred members of Congress co-sponsored the legislation -- thanks to the efforts of all of you in the SOA Watch movement. We currently have 113 co-sponsors of HR 1217, the legislation introduced by Rep. McGovern that would close and investigate the SOA/ WHINSEC. We are now in our strongest position to close this school since we won a vote in the House of Representatives in 1999!

[acmejack]

3. They're (SOA) going down

High time and good riddance.

edit for clarity

[Monkie]

2. and this while Houston is Islamic terror website central

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/custom/attack/bal-terrorsites12,1,1091516.story?page=1&coll=bal-attack-headlines

"An investigation of several ISPs has revealed that they are hosting the Web sites of listed terrorist organizations. However, the nature of their business makes it hard to control which sites are hosted and while the sites may be objectionable, they are not necessarily illegal. Furthermore, efforts to shut them down could tread on First Amendment rights and possibly hinder anti-terrorism efforts."

this is just one example but it keeps coming up in articles i read.
although to be fair anyone with a creditcard can set up a site like this from outside the USA and its pretty obvious that they arent hosted from Arab countries as they usually have oppressive governments that wouldnt allow such "freedom" of speech