(UK) Police to get major new powers to seize domains

Why do the police need special powers to do this? Why can't they get a court order instead?

Is the reason that the court would not permit it, because doing so would not be just? Perhaps "reasonable grounds to believe..." is not good enough for the courts. Why should it be?

The article headline is misleading (I copied it verbatim), these powers are speculative at the moment.

The article starts off "Police to get major new powers...". Then it says "Police could soon have the power...". Finally "SOCA wants Nominet to change...".

So, in conclusion, they'd like these powers (which we already knew), but nobody has approved anything (which tells us nothing).

Yes, the BBC have a better headline with "Police seek powers ..."

(uk) police to discover web is world wide

Didn't Iceland pass a legal power to enshrine the right to free speech on the web, making it a data haven beyond the reach of these kind of power grabs?

Because it isn't criminal activity that Fitwatch was advocating, but making sure that those people being harassed by the cops had the law on their side, not the UK Stasi.