diff --git a/server-ca/chocolate.py b/server-ca/chocolate.py
index caa914667..4e90fe81c 100755
--- a/server-ca/chocolate.py
+++ b/server-ca/chocolate.py
@@ -289,11 +289,13 @@ class session(object):
                 return
             try:
                 # Check whether the SSL Observatory has seen a valid cert for this name.
-                if urllib2.urlopen("https://observatory.eff.org/check_name?domain_name=%s" % san).read().strip() != "False":
+                # XXX: This has been disabled because this API is unavailable
+                # or unreliable.
+                if False and urllib2.urlopen("https://observatory.eff.org/check_name?domain_name=%s" % san).read().strip() != "False":
                     self.die(r, r.CannotIssueThatName, uri="https://ca.example.com/failures/observatory?%s" % san)
                     return
                 wildcard_variant = "*." + san.partition(".")[2]
-                if urllib2.urlopen("https://observatory.eff.org/check_name?domain_name=%s" % wildcard_variant).read().strip() != "False":
+                if False and urllib2.urlopen("https://observatory.eff.org/check_name?domain_name=%s" % wildcard_variant).read().strip() != "False":
                     self.die(r, r.CannotIssueThatName, uri="https://ca.example.com/failures/observatory?%s" % san)
                     return
             except urllib2.HTTPError: