March 27, 2008

Hosting terrorists

According to Brian Krebs on the Washington Post's computer security blog: Network Solutions, the internet hosting service that blocked access to Geert Wilders' Fitna website in response to complaints, has been providing services to Hizbollah:

NetworkSolutions on Monday pulled the plug on Hizbollah.org, one of the official Web sites of Hezbollah, a political and paramilitary group in Lebanon. NetworkSolutions spokeswoman Susan Wade confirmed that the company suspended the domain in response to numerous complaints, and to findings that the site violated the company's acceptable use policy. As noted in the comments for this post, Hezbollah is rather prominently included under the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. FTOs are designated under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and under that law it is illegal "for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide 'material support or resources' to a designated FTO." So, complaint or no, NetworkSolutions would appear to have been in violation of that law until it terminated its contract with Hizbollah.
I hope they throw the book at them.