City of London Police Take Down Proxy Service Over Piracy Concerns 133
Mr_Silver writes TorrentFreak is reporting that the City of London Police (a private police force in government-backed livery with an authority that does not go beyond the corporate-controlled City of London area — so not to be confused with the Metropolitan Police) has seized control of a number of domains including Immunicity, a general proxy server that was set up as a censorship circumvention tool. This appears to be their next step after placing banner adverts on websites.
Re:Rome would be so proud (Score:5, Informative)
The City of London Police (who are proper police officers and subject to the same rules etc as any other officer and not a 'private' force) have a remit from the government to tackle certain specific types of crime on a national/pan national basis.
They have a unit that is responsible for this sort of stuff so it does not surprise me that they have done this.
Not a private police force. (Score:5, Informative)
I know it's bad form to provide accurate information on Slashdot but the City of London police are not private at all. Indeed the Wikipedia page linked to in the summary states that it's a govt entity on the very first page.
I apologise in advance for being accurate.
Re:Let's see if I get this right... (Score:4, Informative)
The police, who wants to fight piracy which is claimed to be happening by the corporations, go bust servers with neither warrants nor court orders. What exactly are making these claims legit enough to skip due process? Or is due process some sort of privilege that we shouldn't expect them in the first place?
Same legal reasoning that allows police to beat up anyone they feel like and generally make thugs of themselves - no one seems to actually be willing to stop them.
Nor Private Police (Score:3, Informative)
City of London Police (a private police force in government-backed livery with an authority that does not go beyond the corporate-controlled City of London area — so not to be confused with the Metropolitan Police)
The poster didn't read the Wiki on the City of London Police [wikipedia.org];
The City of London Police is the territorial police force [wikipedia.org] responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, including the Middle and Inner Temples.
The police authority is the Common Council of the City,
The Common Council of the City [wikipedia.org] is an elected body. The City of London police is also publicly funded [wikipedia.org].
What may confuse you Americans is that most British cities have "corporation" in their official name. For example, I live near "The Corporation of the District of Sannich".
The City of London Police is overseen by an elected body and funded through taxes. It is not a private police force. I think that was just a transparent attempt to sensationalize a news story.
Re:Fascist justice (Score:4, Informative)
I make no applogies for corruption or incompetence in CoLP (if any).
Re:Nor Private Police (Score:5, Informative)
The City of London Police is overseen by an elected body and funded through taxes.
Yeah elected. By the local corporations.
Re:Let's see if I get this right... (Score:5, Informative)
PIPCU arrest Nottingham man believed to be running proxy server
The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit has arrested a man in Nottingham on suspicion of running an ‘umbrella’ website providing access to other websites which have been subject to legal blocking orders.
The 20-year-old man was questioned by detectives from the City of London Police unit at a local police station before later being released on bail.
The operation, supported by the Federation Against Copyright Theft, uncovered evidence of the proxy server providing access to 36 other websites that had been blocked for offering illegal or infringing content. The domain names of these sites have been voluntarily handed to police and the related web pages now show a police warning banner.
The arrest is part of the City of London Police unit’s ongoing drive to clamp down on websites providing access to illegal or infringing content, known as Operation Creative. Last week it was announced that PIPCU are replacing advertising on copyright infringing websites with official force banners, warning the user that the site is currently under criminal investigation.
Re:Corporate Cops, eh? (Score:5, Informative)
Do they have a Corporate Congress yet?
Yes [wikipedia.org], corporations with premises in the City of London are given a number of votes in local elections based on the number of employees they have.
Re:Corporate Cops, eh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fascist justice (Score:4, Informative)