From time to time, we receive government requests for information, usually market information and occasionally subpoenas. Recently the US Department of Homeland Security contacted Mozilla and requested that we remove the MafiaaFire add-on.  The ICE Homeland Security Investigations unit alleged that the add-on circumvented a seizure order DHS had obtained against a number of domain names.   Mafiaafire, like several other similar  add-ons already available through AMO, redirects the user from one domain name to another similar to a mail forwarding service.  In this case, Mafiaafire redirects traffic from seized domains to other domains. Here the seized domain names allegedly were used to stream content protected by copyrights of  professional sports franchises and other media concerns.

Our approach is to comply with valid court orders, warrants, and legal mandates, but in this case there was no such court order.  Thus, to evaluate Homeland Security’s request, we asked them several questions similar to those below to understand the legal justification:

• Have any courts determined that the Mafiaafire add-on is unlawful or illegal in any way? If so, on what basis? (Please provide any relevant rulings)
• Is Mozilla legally obligated to disable the add-on or is this request based on other reasons? If other reasons, can you please specify.
• Can you please provide a copy of the relevant seizure order upon which your request to Mozilla to take down the Mafiaafire  add-on is based?

To date we’ve received no response from Homeland Security nor any court order.

One of the fundamental issues here is under what conditions do intermediaries accede to government requests that have a censorship effect and which may threaten the open Internet. Others have commented on these practices already.  In this case, the underlying justification arises from content holders legitimate desire to combat piracy.  The problem stems from the use of these government powers in service of private content holders when it can have unintended and harmful consequences.  Longterm, the challenge is to find better mechanisms that provide both real due process and transparency without infringing upon developer and user freedoms traditionally associated with the Internet.  More to come.