@Rockzmom: The US decided to block a number of popular web sites for EVERYONE in the whole world, because they link to material that the US thinks is copyrighted. The sites were not hosting the material themselves and the material can equally easily be found through Google. It's by no means certain any crime according to American law has been committed - there has been no trial, the action was just undertaken using anti-terror laws.

Some of these sites are located outside the US, but it is the US that controls ICANN which governs internet address resolution. No other country has that power - leading to all other countries wondering whether this situation shouldn't be changed.

People from all across the world who try to visit these very popular sites now get a message that the sites are a risk to US Homeland Security and inaccessible: Here is the story: http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent-search-engine-domain-and-more-101126 It generated over 1080 reader comments in one day!

One might wonder how it's a risk to "US Homeland Security" if a few French kids download some cartoons.... but there you go...