Blocking International DNS

Fri Nov 19 20:45:39 UTC 2010

It seems that the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee 
with a unanimous (!) vote :

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/pirate-slaying-censorship-bill-gets-unanimous-support.ars

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-3804

I claim operational content for this as, on the basis of court orders, i..e. a

"temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, or an injunction against the domain name used by an Internet site dedicated to infringing activities"

it requires that, for foreign domain names,

"(i) a service provider, as that term is defined in section 512(k)(1) of title 17, United States Code, or other operator of a domain name system server shall take reasonable steps that will prevent a domain name from resolving to that domain name’s Internet protocol address;"

This expedited DNS cutoff is only available for copyright violations, not for other illegalities. 

Whether this has any chance of actually passing through this Lame Duck Congress remains to be seen, but my personal reading is that that is not likely. 

Regards
Marshall