Mozilla Foundation Resists Government Pressure to Remove Add-on MAFIAA

Published on: May 9, 2011

(Agoura Hills, C.A.) The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization best known for the Firefox browser, has sent a detailed request for legal justification to Department of Homeland Security officials in response to their demand that Mozilla remove from an add-ons repository a freely downloadable plug-in called MAFIAA Fire. This plug-in uses a database of mirror sites to transparently redirect Mozilla’s Firefox browser to new domain names from old domain names that have been seized by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

ICE has been conducting a vigorous campaign of mass seizures of domain names alleged to have been used for activities infringing upon the rights of trademark owners, for illegally offering copyrighted materials without the consent of the copyright owners, for trafficking in child pornography or for other alleged violations. The campaign has been highly controversial, with many domain name owners claiming that ICE has often been extremely slipshod about making certain their targets actually are being used for illegal activities. Especially damaging to the reputations of innocent domain name owners has been the sudden replacement of their former home pages with ICE pages claiming that the sites were taken down for alleged child pornography. ICE agents have been charged by critics with sweeping in entire groups of domains that merely happened to be hosted on the same servers as infringing sites.

According to Mozilla General Counsel Harvey Anderson’s blog, ICE has not yet responded to the request and is unlikely to do so soon. Anderson’s letter to ICE included a number of concerns, the most significant were as follows:

Has the DHS attempted to contact the principals of MAFIAA Fire directly? If so, what was the response?
Has any valid DMCA or other legal action been initiated against MAFIAA Fire or the affected domains by the DHS or by copyright or trademark owners?
What were the exact allegations of trademark or copyright infringements or other wrongdoing against the affected domain owners?
Were formal notices provided in advance by ICE to the affected domain owners, affording them a chance to respond to allegations of wrongdoing before the drastic step of seizures?
Has a court found MAFIAA Fire to be in violation of any law? What was the ruling?
Has a court found any domains seized by ICE and redirected by MAFIAA Fire to be liable for copyright or trademark infringements or otherwise unlawful? What were the rulings?
How is MAFIAA Fire protected should the courts eventually find MAFIAA Fire or the affected domain owners to not have violated any laws?
Is Mozilla required by any law to disable or remove this plug-in? If not, what other reason exists for this demand by ICE?

Anderson worries that the request is an example of overreaching force, expecting that intermediaries act without legal authority. “Our approach is to comply with valid court orders, warrants, and legal mandates, but in this case there was no such court order”, said Anderson.

The decision by Mozilla not to automatically follow government demands has been applauded by the American Civil Liberies Union (ACLU). According to the ACLU, the domain seizures themselves raise troubling questions of propriety and Constitutionality, and the demand that a browser extension be removed merely for making it easier to find replacement sites formerly associated with the seized domains reaches impermissibly far into the realm of protected free speech. The position of Mozilla and the ACLU is that deciding whether or not to remove MAFIAA Fire from the Web is a matter for the courts to decide, complete with all due opportunities for the principals of MAFIAA Fire to defend themselves.

Article by William Kirk · Published Under Security

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