i am disappointed to hear these stories about cert, but encourage others with tales to tell to step forward. this is a real eye-opener.
I just had to deal with a minor crisis caused by CERT. They contacted the domain-admin for the *.fi domain, saying they had been informed that the anonymous ftp archive at anon.penet.fi was being used to distribute illegal copies of software. They did *not* contact me directly, nor my service provider.
How is it that Cert (which to my knowledge is an organization run by Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburg,PA (USA)) should come to have any influence on a domain in finland? They are not to my knowledge a gov't organization although they may be funded by some.. hmm. Doesn't their name stand for computer EMERGENCY response taskforce or something like that? They should have no business bothering you unless you requested some kind of assistance from them, IMHO. The same goes for the berkeley site... I'd definitely be interested in hearing who they think they are working for and under whose authority they are becoming netpolice.