C. Allen Johnson, more commonly known by his radio persona, ‘Critical Thinker’, was taken in for questioning by investigators from the Fraud Squad in Nassau on Thursday.
Johnson was later released but informed that he would be called in for questioning again sometime early next week.
A few weeks ago, with much fanfare, talk show host Lincoln Bain and his radio show guest, C. Allen Johnson, claimed they had “taken over” a government website.
Initially saying they had “hacked’ the site, the duo later changed their story, saying they had merely purchased the domain name after it expired, because the government failed to renew the name.
The truth of the matter is that Mr Johnson merely transferred ownership of the domain name to himself in a move that most webmasters would call unprofessional and unethical.
Mr Johnson says the domain name expired and he simply bought the expired domain name for $2.00 when the government failed to renew it in a timely manner.
But Internet WhoIs records indicate that Johnson merely transferred the ownership of the name to himself, denying the government access to the domain name and hosting account.
When the FNM took over the government, they stated that the mfabahamas.org site was not an official government website and expressed their intetrest in discontinuing the practice of having individual ministries maintain separate websites and domain names.
Ethically speaking, as administrator of the site, Mr Johnson had an obligation to either renew the domain for the client, or take down the website if the client no longer had an interest in the domain name or failed to pay for it.
It is not clear on what grounds the police took Mr Johnson in for questioning. Although what he did was unprofessional and unethical, it does not appear to be against the law. Except perhaps for the fact that he intentionally and willingly defrauded the public on a national radio show and possibly published information attributed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was not government sanctioned.
Deputy Prime Minister Brent Symonette is now calling on PLP MP Fred Mitchell to come clean with the facts and tell the Bahamian public all he knows about how the site was originally created.
Mr Mitchell dismissed the Minister entirely – stating only that he would have a full statement at a later time.
Symonette also said that he has turned the entire matter over to the police for a “full investigation”.
