Is eNom a Hezbollah agent?
July 27th, 2006Answer: No. And I’m not a Libyan agent either (see below).
So why am I even bothering with this absurdity?
Because a story Dan Richman of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is giving currency to a backstabbing little dagger coming from one Brian Marcus, Director of Internet Monitoring for the Anti-Defamation League.
Mr. Marcus is either ignorant about how the Internet works, or (more likely, considering his job) he knows it exactly, and is content to sacrifice someone’s reputation for his greater cause. Mr. Richman, who is either ignorant about how the Internet works or just can’t bother to check his facts, is his carrying boy. (And journalists complain that bloggers are sloppy with facts…)
Marcus accuses eNom of aiding and abetting a terrorist group — in this case a Hezbollah-sympathizing TV station called Al-Manar — for the crime of renewing Al-Manar’s domain name. Furthermore, says Marcus, eNom may have violated a Federal law because Al-Manar is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
I feel for Paul Stahura, CEO of eNom. I’m sure he didn’t know that the registrant was a terrorist group. That’s because registrars aren’t supposed to decide if registrants are OK or not. A registrar is not allowed to check if a registrant is gay, Republican, has rickets, brushes his teeth, or is a fugitive from justice. A registrar just takes information down from a registrant, usually online, and delegates the domain name. That’s it. No checking against any list. Either Mr. Marcus or Mr. Richman could have found that out with a simple phone call to any registrar’s policy person.
Unfortunately this kind of FUD takes forever to go away.
I know this because I woke up one day to find that Andy Sernovitz, at that time head of the Association of Interactive Media, had accused me of being a Libyan agent at a Congressional hearing. (Sernovitz was until recently the CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association too, but he has been erased, Trotsky-like, from their website. I wonder what happened — now that might be a real story, Mr. Richman.)
Ivan Pope, my partner in London, had agreed to help a Libyan anti-Qaddafi dissident (for goodness’ sake) by setting up the nameservers for .LY. We had done the same, as a favor to those less technically able, for several other small ccTLDs. I felt we were doing a Very Good Thing.
But there was my name in the New York Times:
Andrew L. Sernovitz, the president of the Association for Interactive Media, went on the attack at the hearing, accusing [various groups] of trying to hijack the Internet and turn it over to a Swiss “cartel” that would be able to overrule U.S. law.
As an example, Sernovitz cited the New York company NetNames USA, run by Antony Van Couvering, who is chairman of the Policy Advisory Board working with the Interim Policy Oversight Committee, for its acquisition of the Libyan country Internet domain, “.ly” in light of the U.S. ban on doing business with Libya.
“An immediate investigation must be launched to stop this blatant violation of the U.S. bans on dealing with Libya and executing contracts benefiting the Libyan government,” he said. “If this is how the leader of the PAB does business, how much faith can we have in the IAHC process.”
Van Couvering said in a telephone interview that he has asked the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for a ruling on whether or not his registry is violation the trade embargo by handling “.ly” registrations and that it has stopped using the “.ly” code until it gets that ruling.
So Sernovitz took our purely technical aid to a Libyan exile and turned it into a contract with the Libyan government. It took me six months to convince the Treasury Department that I wasn’t in fact a covert operative.
Now Paul Stahura may have to go through the same nightmare because some amoral flack thought it would be expedient to sully his name.
There are plenty of Sernovitzes and Marcuses out there who think nothing of slandering innocent people to serve their ends. It happened to me, and I’m not going to stand by, silent, when it’s happening to someone else.
Anti-Semitism is a sick disease and I fully support the ADL’s mission of exposing it and stamping it out when it emerges. But is it also ADL’s mission to defame others? They owe eNom and Paul Stahura an apology.
Tags: Brian Marcus, Andy Sernovitz, eNom, Paul Stahura, Al-Manar, registrar, domain names, shame
I’m with you on this. Dirty, rotten business.
Ivan Pope | July 27th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
What if eNom had been put on notice previously - in writing - to let them know they were dealing with a terrorist organization, and they ignored it? And what if they were contacted by the Treasury Department, and didn’t respond to that notice either until media pressure forced them to?
Would that change your opinion?
Perhaps eNom (or any other registrar or host or name server) *should* do something if they are told who they are doing business with - especially if it is a terrorist organization. And what other domain registrars were also notified and ingored this information? See: http://haganah.us/harchives/005681.html for another site that is watching who does business with terrorists.
There is a law - and it says it is illegal to provide services to designated terrorist organizations. Is hosting, registering or providing name service not a service?
Maybe you should think about ignorance - and do a little more research on your end and some questioning as to why stories like these appear… maybe there are reasons why comapnies are named…
Hmmmm | July 28th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
Almost forgot - see: http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/js4134.htm
This is not a “Hezbollah-sympathizing TV station called Al-Manar” as you put it, but a PART of Hezbollah. And the action on March 23, 2006 “prohibits transactions between U.S. persons and the designated entities.” This is under the authority of Executive Order 13224 - see http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/2002/16181.htm to have it explained to you.
Al Manar and al Nour are the media arms of the Hizballah terrorist network and have facilitated Hizballah’s activities.
“Any entity maintained by a terrorist group – whether masquerading as a charity, a business, or a media outlet – is as culpable as the terrorist group itself,” said Stuart Levey, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
So… if a company in the US is helping a site stay active, and that site is one that has been SPECIFICALLY named by the government as a terrorist entity (see: http://www.treasury.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/terror/terror.pdf and do a search for manartv.com ) and they CHOOSE to not stop doing business with terrorists… THEN can they be named and shamed?
Or is it that you jumped the gun with your post and got a little sloppy with your facts ’cause you didn’t do due dilligence because you were possibly wronged in the past?
Hmmmmm?
Just call me curious…
And BTW - here are the designations in 3/23/06 of the prohibited entities that US companies cannot do business with because they are part of Hezbollah:
03/23/06: The following [SDGT] entries have been added to OFAC’s SDN list:
AL MANAR TV, Al Manar TV, Abed al Nour Street, Haret Hriek, Beirut, Lebanon; PO Box 354/25, Beirut, Lebanon; info@manartv.com; http://www.manartv.com; http://www.almanar.com.lb [SDGT]
AL NOUR BROADCASTING STATION (a.k.a. AL NOUR RADIO; a.k.a. AL NUR RADIO; a.k.a. RADIO ANNOUR), Abed Al Nour Street, PO Box 197/25, Alghobeiri, Haret Hriek, Beirut, Lebanon; info@al-nour.net; http://www.al-nour.net [SDGT]
AL NOUR RADIO (a.k.a. AL NOUR BROADCASTING STATION; a.k.a. AL NUR RADIO; a.k.a. RADIO ANNOUR), Abed Al Nour Street, PO Box 197/25, Alghobeiri, Haret Hriek, Beirut, Lebanon; info@al-nour.net; http://www.al-nour.net [SDGT]
AL NUR RADIO (a.k.a. AL NOUR BROADCASTING STATION; a.k.a. AL NOUR RADIO; a.k.a. RADIO ANNOUR), Abed Al Nour Street, PO Box 197/25, Alghobeiri, Haret Hriek, Beirut, Lebanon; info@al-nour.net; http://www.al-nour.net [SDGT]
LEBANESE COMMUNICATION GROUP (a.k.a. LEBANESE MEDIA GROUP), Al Manar Building, Ahmad Kassir Street, Haret Hriek, Baabda, Lebanon; Abed Al Nour Street, Haret Hriek, PO Box 354/25, Beirut, Lebanon; Company ID: No. 59 531 at Commercial Registry of the Civil Court of First Instance at Baabda, Lebanon [SDGT]
LEBANESE MEDIA GROUP (a.k.a. LEBANESE COMMUNICATION GROUP), Al Manar Building, Ahmad Kassir Street, Haret Hriek, Baabda, Lebanon; Abed Al Nour Street, Haret Hriek, PO Box 354/25, Beirut, Lebanon; Company
ID: No. 59 531 at Commercial Registry of the Civil Court of First Instance at Baabda, Lebanon [SDGT]
RADIO ANNOUR (a.k.a. AL NOUR BROADCASTING STATION; a.k.a. AL NOUR RADIO; a.k.a. AL NUR RADIO), Abed Al Nour Street, PO Box 197/25, Alghobeiri, Haret Hriek, Beirut, Lebanon; info@al-nour.net; http://www.al-nour.net [SDGT]
Hmmmm | July 29th, 2006 at 12:00 am
All I can say (and all I will say) to the previous two comments is to point out that they:
a. are anonymous
b. pose “what-if” scenarios that are counterfactual
c. adduce evidence about Al-Manar, which was undisputed
Fact remains that Stahura got smeared, and I say it without hiding behind a pseudonym or dreaming up what-ifs.
Antony | July 29th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Guess clicking the link http://haganah.us/harchives/005681.html was too difficult?
If you had done that, you would have seen that “b” is a moot point - eNom and other companies HAVE been put on notice (written, posted online and otherwise) in the past that they were doing business with a terrorist organization (one that was designated as such by the government and is not “a Hezbollah-sympathizing TV station” as stated in the post (which counters your point as far as “c”)). They chose to keep doing business with sites they were told were linked to terrorism. The “I didn’t know” excuse doesn’t cut it here. So is it slander to say that a company, that was told they were doing business with terrorists, didn’t act - and did provide a service (which may be against the law) to a designated terrorist organization?
And as far as “a” - I know some of the people involved in this (more than one) and don’t know if I have their OK to step up and defend them… so I preferred to stay anonymous. Is that so bad?
So, it is not a “what-if” but a *fact* that eNom was warned - and maybe this example will make other companies react properly and in a timely manner when they are told they doing business with terrorists.
Hmmmm | July 30th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Paul Stahura is just as rotten as Richard Rosenblatt of Demand Media. Anything for a buck. I couldn’t disagree with you more. They should be in jail.
Grace | September 24th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Couldn’t agree with you more.
Not to mention the fact that the gov’t labels groups as terrorist to serve its own ends, not that of its people.
Dinny | February 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
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