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Bill Would Let FBI Police File-Sharing
vnguyen6 writes "According to an article on MSNBC, a bill introduced in the Senate gives the FBI power to police file sharing. As if the FBI didn't have their own messes to clean up such as the handling of pre-911 intelligence, FBI agents turned spy (Robert Hanssen), the Los Alamos lab debacle, double agent Mrs. Katrina Leung, need I say more?"
Don't you think the FBI has already proved that they are the last organization you want policing sharing? Lest we forget, it was not too long ago that they their own problems with sharing their files as it is...
"After an internal FBI probe also released today sharply criticized the manner in which the Clinton White House obtained more than 400 such files from the FBI. The internal inquiry by the FBI's general counsel found that the White House's request between December of 1993 and February of 1994 were without justification and amounted to "egregious violations of privacy." "
Yes, but instead of the RIAA or other industry thugs contacting you, they'll send in Lon Horiuchi to shoot you or just burn your place down. Welcome to Police State, USA. If you don't believe it, you're blind.
Check again. Among other things, the DMCA made copyright violation into a criminal matter. One of the really nasty bits, imo.
Im am implying that by agreeing with Mussolini's ideas on (or "hate of" if you wish) Corporatism/Capitalism that you are pimping the ideas of a tyrant.
You need to re-read his comment. Mussolini was obviously in favor of corporatism. He certainly didn't hate it.
They're almost certainly refering to the Wen Ho Lee case, which is still very controversial. Apparently, Chinese intelligence had penetrated the Los Alamos lab an obtained secrets pertaining to our nuclear weapons program (the Chinese had made a quantum leap in only ten years or so, and much of the work in this period appeared to be very similar to ours in some respects). The investigation focused on Lee, who is ethnic Chinese, a logtime employee at the Los Alamos labs, and who had made at least one trip to mainland China previously. His arrest and treatment seemed to be bungled, and the FBI got a black eye over it. Some people adamantly maintain that Lee was indeed a spy, but there was insuffcient evidence, and detractors held this as an example of incompetence and racism in the FBI.
Details can be found here.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
This bill has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the legality or morality of music sharing. It is already well within the jurisdiction of the FBI to go after P2P pirates. The FBI simply doesn't need any civilian micromanagers to authorize them to go after Napterites.
The egregious part of this bill is influence peddlers getting to tell the FBI what it's priorities should be.
If you are only a smalltime briber, the FBI will infact persecute you for the same crap that RIAA and MPAA are perpetrating at this very moment.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Corporatism yes, fascism no. Fascism, essentially, is a name for what happens when a democratic system of government chooses to allow the ruling party to use all control and authority to propagate their rule, thus ending (or fictionalizing) democratic control over the government. It is usually also associated with fierce nationalism and racism, though I don't think these are required by definition.
Corporatism is fascism in the service of corporate interests. It happens when corporations gain so much power that they can use that power to propagate the rule of a puppet government under their own control.
The U.S. is not yet fascist. You can determine this by asking the following question: If the Democrats win a majority of Electoral College votes in the 2004 Presidential election, will it be possible for George W. Bush to hang on to power anyway? If not, then the U.S. is not fascist.
-Graham
If we limit our discussion to the United States, then usually copyright infringement is a civil matter. Criminal proceedings can take place under 17 USC 506. (A fellow /.er filled me in during a previous discussion.)
The bit governing criminal offenses:
The applicability of this section to all to be the most profligate of file traders is questionable--I figure a reasonable retail value of ~$1 per track for music lets you download about 1000 tracks every six months before you hit criminal prosecution. Then again, IANAL, and yerricide raised some excellent points about alternate interpretation of 506(a)(1).
Here is the thread. Enjoy!
~Idarubicin
Sure, but one who likes fascism is called a fascist. Still, since you have read many books, you should know that what the fascist declared in their S Sepolcro Manifesto, they did never do it. Just because they ruled with the mony of the capitalists. And in the beginning (before they went to power) Fascism was anti-capitalist (also anti-communist, but that's another story). Moreover I can tell you corporatism is a slightly different thing. And a part from this, I can tell you it does not work. How I can? I'm Italian. I know people who lived in those times, and everibody who was not a member of the Fascist Party had to buy food at the black market, since there was no food for them. The Fascist didn't gave them enough. Still the Fascists themselves could eat. How? They gave the population almoist anything so they could have almost everything.
I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors but I think that God's got a sick sense of humor. DM
That's because these firebrands don't understand the meaning of Mussolini's "corporatism." It didn't mean corporations running the State, it meant the subjugation of the economy through government "Corporations" or trade boards. Central planning, in other words. This is why the ordinary Italian had trouble getting bread: the mechanics of the economy had been distorted by government controls.
German fascism illustrates this quite well. Corporate officers served at the whim of the State; working hours, wages, pensions, and other benefits were government mandated; there were extensive price controls; production was planned by central party committee; the monetary system was centralized - interest was abolished and private bankers imprisoned. Industry and labor were directly regulated by the State through industry and labor boards modeled after Mussolini's fascist "corporations."
Derek
This post from DesScorp has a few serious inaccuracies.
It was not the case that "apparently Chinese intelligence had penetrated the Los Alamos lab". On the contrary, it was apparently the case that Chinese intelligence had obtained secrets about nuclear warheads that could only have come from a contractor OUTSIDE of the lab, someone further downstream in the weapons production process. Although the discovery of this leak led investigators to look initially at Los Alamos, Los Alamos was eventually ruled out as the source of the information.
Interest in Wen Ho Lee continued, for a variety of reasons, but mostly, in my opinion, because he was a convenient scapegoat for perceived problems at the time.
Later, after an inspection of his lab computer, he was discovered to have backed up some of his data on to magnetic tapes. This led to an entirely separate and different legal case, the case that ended up being brought against him.
But that case was a crock. The data he backed up, or "downloaded" as the prosecutors liked to say, was the code he was working with along with supporting libraries and other parts of the build environment. He had had experience with computers at the Lab crashing and losing data. Also he knew there was a RIF (Reduction In Force) coming up, and the way those work at the Lab is sometimes someone is RIF'ed and then almost immediately re-hired, only to have to rebuild their work environment (computing environment) from scratch. Defenders of Lee have pointed out that wanting to avoid having to rebuild his work environment from scratch was a perfectly innocent motivation for having made tapes.
I own a security brochure from Los Alamos Lab which urges workers to "_Always_ Back Up Your Data On Cartridges or Tapes." It does not say "tell the backup department to back up your data." It basically says do it yourself. The brochure is not classified, but refers to both classified and unclassified data.
Back to DesCorp's post. "The investigation focused on Lee..." again, there were two investigations, two different cases, the first was found to be ridiculous (the data couldn't have come from Los Alamos); the second was ginned up to help the prosecuting entities avoid embarassment.
By the way, contrary to what is often implied in the media, Lee did not take the tapes home. They remained in the secure area of the lab, behind a tall fence with gates that have iris scanners, palm print scanners, metal man cages, 24 hour armed guards, etc. etc.
At the end of Lee's final hearing, at which he was released, the judge in the case apologized to Lee and pointed out that Lee was also owed an apology from the other branches of government.
Which leads to the final and most serious inaccuracy in DesCorp's post, about the historical view of the case now, after the fact. Washington insiders (other than a few paranoid diehards) do not think the botching of the case involved letting a spy get away. Rather, they think the botching of the case was in fingering the wrong man. Vernon Loeb, the intelligence reporter for the Washington Post, has affirmed in writing that this is his understanding of what people in Washington think. It's probably not neccessary to point out that he is someone who has his finger pretty well on the pulse of the Washington intelligence community.