Don't Turn Around.....Der Kommissar Stephen Harper's in Town

[marmar]

Published on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Canada Successfully Destroys Parody Websites

by The Yes Men


The government of Canada has used strong-arm tactics to shut down two parody websites criticizing Canada's poor environmental policy, taking down 4500 other websites in the process.

The two websites, "enviro-canada.ca" and "ec-gc.ca", are "directly connected to a hoax which misleads people into believing that the Government of Canada will take certain actions in relation to environmental matters," wrote Mike Landreville from Environment Canada in an email to the German Internet Service Provider (ISP) Serverloft. "We trust you appreciate the importance of avoiding confusion among the public concerning Canadian governmental affairs and that you will assist us in preventing this hoax from spreading further."

In a remarkable overstepping of bounds, Landreville also asked the ISP to "make every effort to prevent any further attempts concerning other environment-related domains (enviro, ec-gc, etc.) originating from your servers."

In response to Environment Canada's request, Serverloft immediately turned off a whole block of IP addresses, knocking out more than 4500 websites that had nothing to do with the parody sites or the activists who created them. Serverloft was shown no warrant, and never called the web hosting company about the shutdown.

"We are sorry to see that the Canadian government will not 'take certain actions' that could help stave off catastrophic climate change," said Mike Bonanno of The Yes Men, one of the groups that performed the "sophisticated hoax" two weeks ago that involved the fake sites. "And we are also sorry to see that they don't care so much for free speech." ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/29

[rocktivity]

1. I'm too young to remember that song!

:eyes:
rocktivity

[tmyers09]

2. I immediately thought of the guy from The Wedding Singer

The cook in the "Frankie Says Relax" shirt who turns up the radio when the song comes on. One of my favorite movies.