Nobody has to agree - The Broomstick Brief

Nobody has to agree - The Broomstick Brief

Autistici/Inventati was never playing against the United States. No charge was laid, no forum convened, no argument heard.

The collective learned of the designation from the press. No US authority had asked it to take anything down or to hand anything over. Italian authorities had made such requests between 2005 and 2009, and A/I had answered them through the courts: content was removed where a judge ordered it, while requests for user data produced nothing because no logs or subscriber identities had been kept.

A foreign authority does not normally have to ask the provider directly. There is a legal route for obtaining evidence across borders: mutual legal assistance. Italy used that route in 2010, when it sought access to A/I’s servers in Norway. The United States did not use it.

Instead, the designation changed the problem for everyone around A/I. The collective was operating inside a network in which the United States can attach a cost to other people’s choices.

This is a different kind of game.

From: The Broomstick Brief