The other day I received a rather interesting submission in my inbox, linking to an article that appears to be suspiciously similar to the recently-concluded WikiLeaks saga: Steve Marshall, a British national living in Spain who operates a travel agency specializing in trips to Cuba, found 80 of his business’ websites forced suddenly offline due to U.S. Treasury Department interference.

It would appear that the Department of Treasury has a long-running vendetta against Marshall and his business, Tour & Marketing International Ltd. (T&M), as it claims his business is helping American citizens circumvent the embargo against Cuba. “This travel provider is not only a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people, but it also facilitates the evasion of U.S. sanction policy,” reads a 2004 DoT press release, before going on to note that T&M’s statements include such things that it is “Cuba's number one agency for American travelers … regardless of whether they have a Treasury-issued license to travel to the sanctioned country.”

T&M’s American assets were of course blocked, and American citizens banned from transacting with the company – all fairly standard DoT blacklist behavior. The interesting bit is the sudden seizure of T&M’s domains, three years later; a move I find curiously timed given the similar remedies taken against WikiLeaks.org.

At initial glance, both stories appear to be cases of censorship – and in many ways they are, I won’t argue that – but I am noticing that people are painting this to be things that they aren't. The submission I received claimed T&M’s case was yet “another example for taking ICANN out of US hands and making it independent from any one country,” and comments in my original articles painted it as everything from Orwellian governments to unlimited corporate oppression.

I think these people are being alarmist, if incorrect.

Both cases are actually pretty dissimilar, and the only real point in common is that both foreign entities possess domain names registered in United States soil. T&M’s domains were registered by Redmond, Washington-based eNom, and WikiLeaks’ domain was registered by San Mateo, California-based DynaDot. In both cases, the American government acted against the only thing it legally could.

Setting aside arguments of morality and principle, both WikiLeaks and T&M should have seen it coming.

Both entities made a mistake in choosing to register their domains with American registrars, knowing full-well that they would be within the reach of the American government. Why didn’t they register in another country? There are plenty of places they could have gone with their business, and many of those places are, at best, indifferent to American interests – a list of .org registrars includes companies located in Pakistan, India, Barbados, Ukraine, and Singapore, among others. I’m sure registrars in any of those countries would be much slower to respond – if they respond at all – to U.S. authorities’ wishes.

Now, I’m not defending the U.S. government. I don’t agree with what happened, much like how I don’t agree with a lot of what happens in my government today. I side with the little guys on this one. WikiLeaks serves an important role in helping to keep the forces of greed and evil in check, and T&M has legitimate business interests for travelers of other countries – my thoughts on the U.S. embargo notwithstanding.

By operating contrary to U.S. interests, while simultaneously maintaining valuable property on U.S. soil, both WikiLeaks and T&M were playing with fire – and in the above cases, both WikiLeaks and T&M got burned.

In the case of my submitter, ICANN had nothing to do with any of this. To everyone else, I encourage you to find another talking point in your arguments. What we have here is a government acting the same way it has in countless other one-sided cases: granting what relief was available to the parties present. The onus lies with WikiLeaks and T&M to conduct their business accordingly.