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?"

Comments

Corporatism

[Ricin]

It's called corporatism and was very aptly described and put into context by Mussolini. No troll, no joke.

Re:Corporatism

[t_allardyce]

I've come to expect my music for free and like squatters rights ive earned that right from years of not buying music. Denying me my free music is denying me my lifestyle.

Re:Corporatism

[John Biggabooty]

Copyright is a anachronism. File trading will soon put it in the dustbin of history where it belongs. An Idea, once expressed, belongs to us all. Those wishing to posess "intellectual property" need only to keep their thoughts in their heads.

Re:Corporatism

[rking]

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.

Re:Corporatism

[visualight]

The discussion is not about whether copyrights are justified nor is it about whether or not it's okay to download music from FastTrack.

The discussion is about the FBI enforcing the *CIVIL* offense of copyright violation.

When corporations can buy enough influence to make their desires law, it's called "corporatism", or "facism".

Please try to stay on topic

Re:Corporatism

[ghjm]

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

Re:Corporatism

[I(rispee_I(reme]

The FBI persuing the LAW, which coincendintly equates to persuing the interests of RIAA...
'tis no coincidence, my friend. Those laws were paid for by RIAA.

Re:Corporatism

[vTalon]

Why, exactly do you think that copyrights are *wrong*? I don't mean the specifics -- "xx years is too many, xx would be better", "xxx company abuses it" -- but why is the actual concept the use of an idea being controlled by the person who thought up the idea (and if anybody has a better def of copyright, feel free to tell me) not good?

I don't think they're wrong per se...

But. Think of it this way:

Say you have some land. I round up a posse and kick you off your land. Now you no longer have a place to live. I've taken something away from you.

Now say you sing a song. Then I round up a band and we sing the song. You still have the song. I have the song, too. I've taken nothing away from you.

See the difference?

There is a catch. Songwriting takes a certain amount of effort, and it is useful to me to encourage you to write more songs by giving you some sort of compensation for that effort. In fact, it's useful to society at large to encourage creative people to create. It enhances our lives and our culture when we are surrounded by songs and stories. And other forms of "intellectual property" -- medical and scientific ideas, specifically -- are more concretely useful.

Thus copyright. So that you can be compensated for your ideas, and thus be encouraged to come up with more of them. However...

It's important not to forget that all of this is little more than a gentleman's agreement: I give you control of your ideas so that you can make money, and this will supposedly encourage you to create more ideas to entertain and enlighten me. It's a matter of sheer practicality -- copyright is not a moral principle.

The problem of is that some people involved in the agreement have gotten greedy. Instead of requesting reasonable compensation, artists desire to be millionaires. Instead of running a reasonably sized business, the record companies, movie studios, and book publishers want to rake in billions each year.

That's nice for them. But I simply can't afford to contribute much to their fortunes. I have a couple of hundred of dollars of spare budget every month after paying the necessary bills. Part of this needs to go into a rainy day fund. Part of it is earmarked for nights out on the town with friends. I can buy a couple of DVDs and/or CDs and/or books per month with the remaining amount.

Or I can buy high-speed Internet access and download as much stuff as I want.

Which to choose? I'm afraid it's not that hard: High speed access, all the way. If the studios and artists want my money, they can offer their songs and stories at a more reasonable price. Otherwise, well, BitTorrent is my friend.

(Note: I've also purchased a subscription to emusic, because that is one of the few reasonably priced IP distributors out there, and downloading from them saves me from wasting time hunting stuff up on p2p software -- we need more services like it.)

~ PeteVG

Re:Corporatism

[fucksl4shd0t]

Why, exactly do you think that copyrights are *wrong*? I don't mean the specifics -- "xx years is too many, xx would be better", "xxx company abuses it" -- but why is the actual concept the use of an idea being controlled by the person who thought up the idea (and if anybody has a better def of copyright, feel free to tell me) not good?

As a member of the faction of /. that thinks that IP as a government-sponsored institution should be abolished, I feel obligated to respond.

Copyright isn't wrong, per se. It's flawed. It is based on the idea that any idea that can be had will only ever be had by one person, and then grants control of that idea to the one person that dreams it up for a limited period of time. While I don't think ideas should be controlled, let's take a look at whether or not the base idea is correct.

First, the chances that someone will think up an idea never change. (Base assumption, the chances might actually change, depending on whether or not new ideas inspire the thought to be had or suppress the thought)

More and more people in the world everyday means that there are more opportunities for someone to have a certain idea. Laws of statistics are built upon the foundation that coincidences can and do happen, every day in fact.

Now, the longer a work is, the less likely someone else is to create that identical work. However, when we're talking about music, there's just not that many new ideas coming into play in music. There's your regular 4 chords in rock and roll, and there's hundreds of thousands of songs that all sound the same because they use the same progressions. There's a finite number of permutations of those chords, and a finite number of rhythms and phrases in which you can work those chords. It's no surprise, then, that people create songs that are infringing works. No, I can't substantiate this, other than with the George Harrison suit, and George Harrison wasn't particularly creative so it's likely he did rip off the song. :)

Novels are a different story, simply because of what is actually copyrighted in a novel. It's the entire text of the book. It doesn't take very long before it becomes highly unlikely that someone else will write a duplicate of the work.

In any case, there's more people on this planet every year, and more opportunities for a copyright to be infringed by a totally independent creative effort. How do you address this problem?

Now, patents are different than copyrights, and I'm more opposed to patents than to copyright, because a patent really is giving complete control of an idea to one person for a period of time.

In other words, if I, say, write a novel and publish it (which I hope to do some day), why shouldn't have some control of how it is sold, what is done with the story, and how profits are made off it?

Several things, here. First, is the story the part of the book that's copyrighted? Or is it the entire work? Do you want complete control over the story? What happens when you write a book with a story that matches someone else's real life experiences, and they also write a book about it? What part of the work are you seeking control over? Is it the characters? Or is it the work as a whole?

Nobody's trying to take away your right to try to make money any way you can, we're just trying to make it a more competitive market. That's all. :) Here's a question: if I go down to the bookstore and buy a copy of your book, what right do you have to tell me I can't make copies and pass them around to my friends and family? What right do you have to tell me what I can and can't do with the book I purchased? I say none at all, and if you want that right, don't sell it to me. What right do you have to tell me that I can't quote parts or all of the book in any fashion without your permission? I say that the only responsibility I have in that case is to cite the author and t

Re:Corporatism

[bill_kress]

Just a question regarding your last line:

>>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.

Suppose a corporate interest wanted to control the government, would this government be called "fascist" if, say, they allowed two parties with different social agendas but very similar agendas towards your company?

Another party "Could" get into office, so you spread some concepts like "A vote for a third party by is throwing your vote away".

If this virtually gaurentees that the nation will be governed by one of your two "owned" parties, is this fascist yet?

Not that I'm saying such a country exists, this is just a theoritical question.

Bill Who?

[ViXX0r]

Who else here read the title at first and thought that?

Perhaps it's Mr. Gates at it again :)

A thought...

[c0dedude]

Yeah, if this passes, the era of Kazaa et al. will end perminantly, as everyone will be too scared to get caught to share or download as the FBI WILL catch people for copyright violations. Fair use? Hah.

Re:A thought...

[Uber Banker]

I doubt the FBI have much of the resources - now. They could be conviently funded by the RIAA though and get resources directed to this.

So it comes down to a secretive police force investigating people on behalf of corporate funding rather than allowing these funds to be spent on murder, terrorism, rape or theft charges.

Shame on you.

Re:A thought...

[doktor-hladnjak]

The first problem is that this A LOT to police. To start with there are LOTS of people involved in P2P. Next, the FBI would need to determine to reasonable extent that the material is infringing. While a lot of things on Kazaa are illegal, not everything is.

As far as I know, the FBI already investigates software piracy claims (at least in the sense of people making illegal copies available). However, they obviously have not completely stopped that (far from it really). They didn't even have a handle on it before the big P2P apps came along. Sure, it was probably never so easy as typing in "free microsoft windows" in a web search engine, but you could always find things if you knew where to look (IRC comes to mind in the days before more automated P2P). I'm skeptical that P2P enforcement would be any different. If anything, it would be harder to deal with, because of the distributed nature of lots of networks. This isn't just a matter of shutting down a warez FTP site.

Also important is that the FBI's enforcement capabilities end at US borders. Of course other governments could follow the US example and take similar steps with their law enforcement agencies. However, I just don't see countries like China or Russia really cracking down on P2P users, judging from their responses to software copyright infringement.

Maybe at first, a lot of people would get scared enough, stop using P2P, and things would go more underground. However, the available content would not drop off as dramatically, because there would still be lots of overseas nodes to draw files from.

Re:A thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the FBI won't bother going after someone who has just hijacked charter.com's DNS server entries and is running their own online bank password and credit card number sniffing web proxies, why would they spend a New York minute on a Kazaa user?

Re:A thought...

[t_allardyce]

So it comes down to a secretive police force investigating people on behalf of corporate funding

I thought thats exactly what America was about? You mean its not? Well i dont live there, but i just got the impression that politicians and government agencies were all "sponsored" by various corporations with their own agendas.

rather than allowing these funds to be spent on murder, terrorism, rape or theft charges.

Q: Who says music piracy is less important than murder? A: Well the RIAA ofcourse! - when your funded by sponsors, you do what they say.

why do i always confuse IRA with RIAA??

Re:A thought...

[Tackhead]

> If the FBI won't bother going after someone who has just hijacked charter.com's DNS server entries and is running their own online bank password and credit card number sniffing web proxies, why would they spend a New York minute on a Kazaa user?

Because the RIAA pays them to.

Hijack a million open proxies to fill your kids' inboxes with h0t w3t 5lutz wh0 w4nt 2 suk ur c0ck? No problem! (Hell, not even charter.com gives a fuck, and it's charter's clueless fuckwit customers whose open proxies are being abused to tell your kids about incest goat pr0n.)

But listen to Britney Spears without paying RIAA their cut? Yo, dude, that's a crime. FBI'll be on your ass like Hilary Rosen on a box of Krispy Kremes.

All I want is to live in a world where comments like this could be moderated (-1, Troll) instead of (+1, Informative).

Re:A thought...

[BrianDeacon]

Not looking to denigrate Mr. Uber Banker in any way... but what is the deal with the mods that this post is getting a 4/Insightful... it's just the usual /. "I hate the man" paranoia.

Hmph... guess I'm getting frustrated with the one-sided crankiness that the moderation system always seems to promote.

Now please mod this down as OT... cuz it is. :)

As long as they do it legally

[porkface]

If P2P threatens our economy as much as some people think, why shouldn't the FBI go after pirates and the like?

Sure that's all debatable, but local law enforcement isn't up to the task. It's a decentralized problem geographically, but from another perspective it's centralized on the net and attacking it might best be handled by a central, and technologically capable command. The FBI seems like the most logical choice.

Sure they have other fish to fry, but considering that most people I know, including those who can barely use a computer, are sharing software movies and music, perhaps government has to grow a little to keep this from becoming even worse as in some places like China and Russia.

Re:As long as they do it legally

[poptones]

Sure they have other fish to fry, but considering that most people I know, including those who can barely use a computer, are sharing software movies and music, perhaps government has to grow a little to keep this from becoming even worse as in some places like China and Russia.

Context:

Now that anyone I know can afford a book how will the church control information? Now that anyone I know can afford to copy a page from a book, how will publishers and printers stay in business?

Shit happens. It's not our government's job to protect us from knowledge and information... unlike in those "free" countries you mentioned.

Re:As long as they do it legally

[porkface]

Hey, I'm just saying there is no room for any kind of sustainable commercial software industry in those countries because piracy goes unchecked. I'm not advocating the FBI stepping in and changing any rules about what you can or can't say or read.

Sending the 0101010's of Microsoft Windows XP + serial to your buddy for him to use without paying is not covered by the first ammendment or any other law.

Sure industries need to adapt, and the ones most under fire from piracy have shown a strong will against adapting to give consumers what they want. But a strong attempt at a boycott should have been tried before we turned to looting.

Re:As long as they do it legally

[RyanFenton]

Sending the 0101010's of Microsoft Windows XP + serial to your buddy for him to use without paying is not covered by the first ammendment or any other law.

Actually, that IS protected speech. However, Microsoft,etc. are also entitled to use the court system to sue you for damages, and have you punished. Laws are made to restrict freedoms, not create them. The law does not know, just in the transmission of data, whether your action is licensed, sanctioned, or anything else - it's the interpretation afterward that decides whether it was infringing on an other entity's rights. That means, to me at least, that speech in general should not be restricted, just so infringing speech can be restricted.

In this particular topic, I don't think it should be the government's responsibility to minitor all communications, or the individual's responsibility to have to actively justify their actions - RIAA, etc. should on some level have to prove specific infringement before the general public has to defend itself against their whims. We shouldn't have to pay for thier logical responsibilities.

Ryan Fenton

Knee-jerk policing?

[Mr Smidge]

.. And I wonder what sophisticated monitoring techniques the FBI would use to filter out those individuals who grossly leech tons of files, and those who just happen to be sharing within their fair use rights among friends, and those who just happen to have a library of legally-obtained copyrighted files.

Oh wait, that's not on their checklist now is it?

Don't they have something better to do?

[TyrranzzX]

And I agree, this is corperatism and it's absolute bullshit. I'm getting sick and tired of hearing about how goverment agency X attempts to enfoce the unenforcable with new and buggier technology, then proceeds to hange some poor guy or gal on the highest pole they can fine. Pretty soon time will be copyrighted and so will words.

This is a complete waste of our goverment which can be doing useful things such as tracking down pedophiles or hanging rapists assholes. Hell, if corperates had their way police would be giving out nothing but tickets, letting the real criminals go (becuase it costs money to put em' in jail)...I don't think most polcemen signed onto the force to go after the average joe who's sick of a media monopoly, I think they'd rather be cracking the skull a real criminal.

Re:Don't they have something better to do?

[Surak]

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini. (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor).

Yup. you hit the nail right on the head.

And this is justified by saying that downloading music and movies online hurts the economy.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The amount of people who only download music and movies and don't buy them can't be very high. First off, only 50% of the households in the U.S. have computers in the first place. Secondly, it's hard to believe that all of those 50% use a file sharing system. After all, only, what? 10% or of those have broadband connections? I mean downloading the stuff over a 56K modem connection takes an excruciating amount of time. And what percentage of those don't buy music or movies and exclusively use stuff they got off the net? Personally, my purchase of movies and music has *increased*, not decreased since I got broadband and started using file sharing services.

And, why would the FBI investigate this stuff? Last I checked, copyright violation was a civil, not a criminal matter. Violation of copyright is not theft anyway. Check with the U.S. copyright office. They do not consider it theft.

Why do we need this government interference in our lives? Why should the RIAA and the MPAA dictate our lives? What happened to our constitutionally limited republic?

I'm sick of this. I'm about ready to move to some country that has smaller government and less governmental interference in my life. Anybody got any suggestions?

Re:Don't they have something better to do?

[thisissilly]

Last I checked, copyright violation was a civil, not a criminal matter.

Check again. Among other things, the DMCA made copyright violation into a criminal matter. One of the really nasty bits, imo.

Not their job...

[wbren]

As the article pointed out, this isn't the FBI's job, and âoe[i]t gives them a chance to scare a lot of users into thinking the government is after them.â This should be handled through the courts, not the RIAABI--err--FBI... I can just imagine 100 million people being arrested by the FBI due to copyright infringements...

Re:Not their job...

[Anonymous Coward]

RIAABI? don't call it that, the skinheads will cry "ZOG ZOG ZOG! Zionist Conspiracy!"

Re:Not their job...

[RPI Geek]

I can just imagine 100 million people being arrested by the FBI due to copyright infringements...

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure copyright infringement is a civil crime and hence is not an arrestable offense. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Not their job...

[Idarubicin]

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure copyright infringement is a civil crime and hence is not an arrestable offense. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

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:

Sec. 506. - Criminal offenses

(a) Criminal Infringement. -

Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -

(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,

shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement...

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!

What about other contries?

[rehabdoll]

I dont have the energy to read the article but how would FBI, The US Goverment and the US public feel about non-us goverments policing p2p-nets? Would they be outraged or welcome the "help"? The Internet is public domain, not US property.

I'm as "guilty" as most...

[SmirkingRevenge]

I've bought maybe 3 CDs in the past few years and only directly from the artists (usually independantly made) here in Austin. I download music I'm interested in off of Kazaa/eMule and refuse to ever buy the CD if it's an RIAA company.

That said, we _are_ guilty of copyright infringement, and the sharing networks could pretty easily lock out that material. As a software engineer I very much dislike seeing software pirated online and it'd be pretty hypocritical of me to support downloading music but wanting to punish/prevent software piracy.

The point is, we're commiting a federal crime, which falls under FBI jurasdiction, it's pretty hard to contest this. Contest the laws, fine, but give me a good reason this doesn't fall under the FBI's umbrella.

Re:I'm as "guilty" as most...

[wbren]

I'm not questioning their right to prosecute people that distribute copyrighted material. My main problem with this law is: "That would probably authorize them to tell ISPs, âYou also need to give information on users to the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) whenever they ask.â(TM)â I just think there's a lot of room for abuse here...maybe I'm just paranoid.

Re:I'm as "guilty" as most...

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when america wasn't trying to become the most powerful fascist state in the world, copyright violation was only a civil offense, not criminal.

New Business Opportunity

[bedouin]

Coming soon: Off shore shell accounts with pre-installed CLI p2p clients.

FBI no, anarchy yes

[spazoid12]

"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?"

If McDonald's announced it were going to start selling BBQ pork chops, would you say "as if they didn't have their own messes...one time an employee spit in a burger...need I say more?"

Or, maybe you saw a small bug in notepad.exe...quick! Condem all of Microsoft! (ok, maybe)

But, aside from this file-sharing issue, it seems you have an FBI axe you'd like ground to the hilt. I'm sure the FBI is far from perfect. How do you propose it be fixed?

Service Announcement: The text of this post that you've just read is copyright, me, and I have not given you permission to read it. You are in violation of my copyright and the FBI will be raiding you soon. Thank you.

FBI and File-Sharing

[Orne]

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." "

Well, a reason...

[SharpFang]

I guess they won't touch average Joe Geek for file sharing, but if they see you are suspect, they may arrest you, just for this bogus reason that you shared your files and start some more serious investigation with you legally in jail.

In darkest times of communist terror in Poland, there was a common saying "Don't worry, they can find a paragraph for everyone". Seems this law is just one more of such paragraphs to "match everyone".

Don't they already have this power?

[weston]

This seems like it's already in their domain. Don't they already have the authority to intercept and monitor electronic communications? Have jurisdiction over interstate transfers/transactions/deliveries? Can prosecute cases with more than $5,000 damage (which, thanks to inflated estimates, copyright infringement cases are)? And hey, it's a feature of most p2p apps that they essentially open up your computer for inspection for the potentially offending material, so it's not like they need to legislate around unreasonable search/seizure laws.

I really don't see what extra powers the FBI needs here.

Re:Don't they already have this power?

[Mesozoic44]

I really don't see what extra powers the FBI needs here.

I think that the 'extra' is political legitimacy. Most people think that existing laws are for catching criminals and they don't see themselves as criminal. Once the FBI gets the 'extra' they will prosecute a few cases with a lot of publicity. It's just a tactic for moving the privacy/criminality boundary one step at a time.

Bad FBI things only ever get publicised

[Richard_at_work]

right? Whatever happened to the millions of cases the FBI solved, or prevented crimes, or caught murderers? You never hear about them, so you only get this picture of a bumbling group of people wearing FBI coats.

Next generation P2P

[headkase]

What the next generation of P2P needs is the ability for it's users to be anonymous. This could be acomplished by routing all P2P packets through at least one third party node. The third party node is the only node that knows the IP addresses of the two sides and it does not keep any logs. In addition, why not encrypt all network traffic as well.
Of course as soon as a viable solution exists that makes people anonymous on the internet, no doubt the congress-critters will pass legislation to make it illegal.

Wholesale FileSharing Isn't Fair Use

[reallocate]

Wholesale copying of the entirety of hundred or thousands of titles and making those copies available to an audience of strangers across the entire globe is not, and never has been, considered fair use.

If you copy your entire CD collection and serve it up to the world, that's infringement, not fair use.

The only thing that the great crowd of filesharing whiners is going to get for the rest of us is a bunch of costly and annoying technical copy prohibition schemes.

Re:Wholesale FileSharing Isn't Fair Use

[jedidiah]

Sure it has. Radio broadcasters do it all the time.

Copyright is meant to enrich authors, artists, and inventors: not cartel middle men. Even with an ASCAP protection payment, the original authors never get their cut.

Re:Wholesale FileSharing Isn't Fair Use

[reallocate]

Fair use is a legal concept that has well-defined parameters. Do a little Googling on "copyright" and "Fair Use" and you'll quickly find what you need to know.

What you may or may not think fair use "ought" to be is irrelevant. In most cases, duplicating the entirety of a work and distributing it is not considered fair use. Nor does the alw apply different standards depending on the techology in question. In other words, using p2p to distribute your CD's is the equivalent to making copies of every book you own and then trying to sell them.

News!! 2 more planes hit 2 more towers in New York

[Captain Kirk]

Al Quaida have carried another attack. 3000 dead. FBI agents plan to carry out a full investigation shortly after they jail 14 year old Tommy who is suspected of piracy and crimes against public decency. "Sicko baby" said Officer Pat "He was redistibuting filth, including a full Madonna CD. Makes me want to vomit." Asked to comment on the new Al Quaida atrocity, Pat said "Its just another couple of planes. Been there and seen that before. First, we gotta take down Suzy in Queens first - word on the street is that she's sharing hard-core Justin Timberlake! We gotta protect the kids from that threat."

Welome to the land of the free and home of the brave.

Let Them!

[argoff]

To be honest, I don't think technology is on their side. Other than the occasional string up someone and make an example out of them, or the occasional beat someone down who admits it publicly, I think that 99.99% of the population could share information freely and never be touched.

In a way that is the point. The purpose of politics (and less directly government) is that it's better to fight wars with words rather than with blood. But to copy things does not require coercion at all, the rules are not the same, we are not dealing with limited resources where when one person gains another looses. They will not get disenfranchised help, they will not get public support, and they will not get personal fufillment helping a bunch of hollywood brats act like the gestapo.

Don't get too worried

[Ars-Fartsica]

The FBI is not the "elite" agency they claim. In three years they couldn't find Eric Rudolph, supposedly (at one time) "enemy number one". It took a local beat cop to do the job.

Its telling that the most auspicious factoid regarding the FBI is that their former leader used to wear dresses.

Don't you dare comment!

[GrouchoMarx]

If you're taking the time to write a comment on this story, DON'T. Instead, take that same amount of time to write a one page, reasoned, intelligent letter to your Senators (you have two, you know that?) telling them that you disapprove of this bill, telling them WHY (privacy violation, overextension of copyright, and so forth are good places to start), and encouraging them to work against it. Not tomorrow morning, RIGHT NOW. Get away from that Submit button and go write a letter to someone who could actually do something. Then send it snail mail to their LOCAL office (not DC office), or fax it. (Not email. Many offices don't pay attention to email, although some do.)

I don't want to see any replies to this post. Get away from Slashdot and do something other than whine, or you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

Are you still here? Stop reading and start acting!

Re:Don't you dare comment!

[nomadicGeek]

It would probably help to include a check for their campaign with the letter.

Real CD trade

[t_allardyce]

No i think they should start at the home - FBI stakeouts should raid teens who lend cd's to their friends. These crack-houses of teen music sharing need to be shut down. This sort of crime has been going on way longer than modern internet file sharing. Infact ever since consumer availiable music and video recordings were availiable people have been illigally "lending" eachother copies. This sort of crime has got to stop. Theres no easy way to police file trading without getting caught up in all sorts of messy 1st amendment, freedom of this and that laws so i think the FBI should concentraite on the more tangable, phyisical and "real" cd swapping going on. Thats just my opinion

Re:Next Article

[psykocrime]

Slashdot'ers whine as police officers enforce traffic laws.

And this is a problem why?

Anybody with a lick of common sense realizes that most traffic laws exist to generate a revenue stream for the government and have almost nothing to do with public safety.

Did you realize that posted speed limits aren't needed, because traffic is pretty much self-regulating? Do you HOW the determine what the speed limit for a given stretch of road is? They monitor speeds over that stretch, and set the actual speed limit to the 85th percentile speed.

Now, you've got the cops aiming cameras at red lights, to catch people who run the red light. Talk about a blatant violation of civil liberties. The government doesn't have any right to watch me at every intersection I travel though, just because I happen to be driving a car. "driving a car" is hardly "probably cause" for anything. Likewise, those "Operation Eagle" checkpoints they do in NC to catch drunk drivers, are so fucking unconstitutional it makes me want to vomit.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is valid.

The FBI only has 11,000 agents. After September 11th, 7,000 of them were dealing with counterterrorism. The FBI needs more agents. They DO NOT have unlimited manpower.

The FBI has enough problems. We are seeing increases in drug and sex trafficking. The DEA and local enforcement has been largely abandoned by the FBI in terms of aid in fighting drug cartels. Counterterrorism is the priority. With stuff like this, it only takes away more resources from fighting the real stuff.

This is very, very relevant.

More RIAA cost-shifting

[Oloryn]

This strikes me as a continuation of the cost-shifting that began when sufficient levels of copyright violation were made 'criminal'. The cost of prosecuting a civil case is borne by the plaintiff (i.e. the RIAA). The cost of prosecuting a criminal case is borne by the taxpayer. Hence the criminalisation of copyright violation caused the costs of prosecuting those violations to be shifted from the RIAA et al to the taxpayer.

This is the same type of thing. The RIAA et al faces fairly high costs in trying to deal with P2P networks. Putting the FBI in charge of policing P2P networks means the taxpayer will be funding those investigations instead of the RIAA.

$10,000 rule

[fliplap]

While not an "offical" rule, it is generally regarded that the FBI will not pursue a case unless at _LEAST_ $10k in damages was done. For you normal people and small businesses, this means $10k in _actual_ damages. For example, I believe credit card numbers are given a weight and it takes so many of them to get the FBI to investigate a case of a cracker stealing them. For you little people this does not include the time you wasted dealing with this. However, if you were a big business then it of course does.

As for this case, the $10k rule doesn't apply since this insane value (up to $250,000? iirc) has been placed on copyright violations. Perhaps if the FBI valued a "stolen" song on what it is actually worth we wouldn't have this problem.

On top of the insane overvaluing of copyright violations there is the fact that the law doesn't state copyright violation as theft, they didn't actually lose anything. So lets assume that a 15 song CD costs $15 (not that this is accurate). Then a stolen song from the CD should be worth $1, oh for fun we'll say it was the one good song on the album and give it a $2 value. So it would take 5000 of the best songs on 5000 cds to make the FBI even look at the case under normal circumstances.

Then one would think, wait, $10k worth of damages wasn't actually done. No one was actually deprived of anything besides what they thought they were due. So then we end up with another problem, how much are they actually worth? It gets very complicated and basiclly comes down to what we all knew all along, some is getting bought off.

Tax Payers

[Ender77]

Is this where our Tax Paying money is going? Is this why we have the FBI? Funny, I thought it was to keep murderers and rapists off the street, you know...DANGEROUS CRIMINALS. I didn't know that they were going to go after the millions of TEENAGERS who are downloading the latest song off the net.

I must give the RIAA credit though, they finally realized that they could not afford the bill to keep suing people with no money so they bri...er gave campaign contributions to some congressman to make the tax payers pay the bill. Something about the sleaziness of all this that you have to admire.

What will the FBI do though? The FBI likes to go after people with MONEY or is a high profile person. The majority of users donâ(TM)t fit either of those categories. The FBI will make a big show of going after people at first but one they find out the joys of WHACK-A-MOLE P2P they will only go after the big fish like the riaa is doing anyway.

I hope this bill donâ(TM)t pass but I am too pessimistic to believe otherwise

The price of Freedom ...

[bizitch]

is eternal vigilance ...

The problem with Freedom is - you never know what people will actually do with it ... like invent a decentrallized p2p network and then trade files with each other.

Stay tuned - the war continues ....

Re:The Third Way

[Ricin]

I don't say anyone has the right to illegally download copyrighted material. In fact I try to discourage people from doing that as it hurts both legitimate file sharing and artists who want to cheaply publish to anyone interested, as well as open source software.

Those people will be targeted as well. Shooting a cannon against a mosquito. Or, if you like, from the POV of the offenders, mobilising the whole city police squad for getting someone who stole an apple .

All the while real big crime, human abuse and terrorism (don't confuse that with proclaimed vision or opinion, people who steep so low are either desperate or for sale for anything or both) can flourish because the FBI has Stasi ambitions.

Now think about how money flows in spending and revenue. Upwards when, downwards when? Someone must benifit. Someone runs the show. There you have corporatism.

Re:The Third Way

[Jad LaFields]

Hear hear!

I download plenty of things that I did not pay for, but I don't try to rationalize my actions with bullshit arguments about 'rights'. What I'm doing is illegal, and possibly immoral. When I speed, I don't get angry at the cop for pulling me over, I knew I was doing something illegal, did it anyway, and got caught.

I may feel that some of the specifics of the speeding laws are off-base, I may feel that some streets have the wrong minimum speeds, but that doesn't mean that I feel that we should tear the whole concept of speeding violations down. Just as I feel that lengths of copyrights, and who can own them and what can be done with them might be wrong, but I still see the good in them (protecting people who make their living by their ideas).

This is probably what they were talking about...

[DesScorp]

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.

Sade

[executebusiness.com]

I went and saw Sade in concert only after hearing an mp3 of hers. My wife and I would NEVER have done that without first hearing her latest music. She's come very far since the eighties.

The corporate machine is not fascist, or totalitarian. It's greedy, is all. The dummies who want to kill p2p are just shooting themselves in the foot because they aren't smart enought to realize that it BOOSTS the ecconomy. Come on Harvard, where are the papers to back this up!?!

US 'paragraphs'

[SuperBanana]

In darkest times of communist terror in Poland, there was a common saying "Don't worry, they can find a paragraph for everyone". Seems this law is just one more of such paragraphs to "match everyone".

Ah, like the MA state law which makes it illegal to "misuse" the equipment in your vehicle, which cops use to stop you when there's something hanging from your rear-view mirror, if they don't like the looks of you? Then there's the popular-in-movies "[smack] Gee, your taillight is out..."

How about an even better one- speed limits. Everyone exceeds them at least a little bit, and the cops pretty much don't care except in two cases: a)when they don't like the looks of you and need an excuse to stop you and b)when they've got a quota of sorts to fill on tickets.

Police versus vigilantism

[hpa]

Despite the obvious flaws of the FBI, including the Hooverite legacy, let's keep in mind why the police (including the FBI) exist -- to enforce laws, instead of having a bunch of vigilantes enforce the laws in the particular manner they want. Quite frankly the FBI is much more appropriate in this way than all the various "let's deputize copyright holders and let them go out and enforce", including stuff like Palladium and the recent Hollings proposal. Far too many proposals lately have been effectively about creating a corporate police force.

Abuse of copyright laws

[moncyb]

There is no guarantee this law will stop criminal activity. However, "copyright holders" have a track record of using these types of laws to silence detractors and competitors. Just think of all the abuses of the DMCA. A guy was going to give a speech about how crappy ebook encription was, so the company had him arrested under the DMCA. Printer manufacturers use it to shut down competing ink cartridge manufacturers. Various cults and companies routinely use it to shut down naysayer websites. The list goes on and on.

In these cases, States + Corporations do equal fascism! More and more these days, the US Government together with large Corporations (not nessesarily US based) are acting like the old Soviet Union. Censorship (DMCA). Banning of devices which may override censorship (mandated DRM). Taking away individual's property rights (Selling something to a customer, then, after they pay, saying it's really leased, and you have to follow a very absurd and restrictive license agreement). In Soviet Russia, the government owns you. In Soviet US, the corporations own you.

Re:The Third Way

[jedidiah]

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.

Death of the Internet, News at 5

[nurb432]

Things like this are going to destroy what is left of the Internet. And piss off even more of their 'consumer base'.

After the commercialization pretty much destroyed what it stood for.

On a related note, when did it become the problem of the FBI to investigate CIVIL issues?

Oh wait, its all part of total control of information... nevermind. The whole thing just pisses me off.

Far reaching consequences.

[chris_7d0h]

This paves the way for some serious contemplation.

Consider an earlier article published last week, where Sweden was about to enforce draconian IP laws and rights to enforce them. Those laws would lead to their police (and probably other obscure agencies) starting to patrol(1) a lot of Internet services such as p2p networks for example. How would this be received by other nations as there is not simple way of distinguishing a user's nationality from some IP address?
Let's face it, going down the current path, the US isn't going to be the only country doing massive interception and analysis of communication on the Internet and when the politicians wake up and smell the coffee, this kind of mess will have spiraled far out of their control.

Ponder this. Does anyone imagine a government capable of intercepting and filtering most communication to be standing on some kind of high moral and ethical ground where a reasoning like "The correct thing for us to do is to only police our own waters for domestic criminal activity" is going be the current agenda?

No friggin way is my assessment.

This is paving the way for a situation where espionage(2) is the trade of the day. In a few years when most states have caught up with any current technological forerunners there are, in my view, going to be only two choices. Either you encrypt all traffic(3), allowing you some kind of domestic protection, or you will have no protection at all.

The future in my view looks rather bleak if certain politicians and their fellow lobbyists are going to have their way. As I see it, the first ones to realize this problem has been the same type of people making the technological measures allowing such potential abuse, tech-savy folks such as some members of this blog. Mr. and Mrs. Clueless will be the first ones lined up against the wall as they will be caught off guard, unaware of how technology works and how it can be abused and thus unable to protect themselves from the private agendas of those with monetary and political power.

As a final Note. Most know that the last 9 in 99.999% availability figure is extremely expensive to obtain. Likewise, getting the last 9 when it comes to making people law-abiding(4) is going to be infinitely more expensive both from a monetary cost and most importantly, the cost of lost freedom...
As many of us know, the only information system totally secure is a system without external interfaces. The only secure(5) or safe society is a society without a mind of it's own, without free thought.

Which society do you wish the future to hold?


1. Meaning intercepting and scanning.
2. Of foreign power, corporate and any entity which the people with the means might be interested in for one reason or another.
3. Since modules in a computer system co-exist and make use of each other more and more for various tasks, it's getting harder and harder to know what component is transmitting what information and thus the only way to feel some kind of security is to only allow encrypted traffic.
4. Be it a valid law supported by the majority of the citizen or not.
5. Also known as "safe" or "convenient" in some corporate lingo.

hurray for great justice on the American Internet!

[Saeger]

Oh, you mean the Net's global? And the FBI would be getting a lot of that juris-my-dick-tion crap from other countries? What are they gonna do? "Hey you, axis of evil, hand over the p2p terrorist on 194.225.70.96 or we'll embargo your netblock!"? :)

--

The Real Reason

[starman71taylor]

The real reason will begin to emerge.......

People need to understand a few principles before rationally contemplating what is
happening to the transformation of the internet.

First, the U.S. Government is a corporate entity that is no different than the
corporations it protects. The government protects it's interest, which also happens to be
the commerce of the nation, which in turn happens to be the multi-facted head of the
corporate machine in the United States.

With that said it will give you a better view of what is GOING to happen to the internet
over the next couple of years in the wake of the âoefalse-flagâ operation called 9-11
(Yes, as shocking as it may be to some, 9-11 was a staged event. Do your homework
and the truth will hit you like a ten-pound sledgehammer in the head.).

Second, since the U.S. Government is directly tied to the big media machine's interest
it should come as no surprise that members of Congress are going to press for a
huge policing of the net. It will hinge upon the peer-to-peer networks and directly target
âoefile swappingâ. The RIAA and the MPAA will just love this type of enforcement because they cite these networks as the prime reason that their respective revenues have dropped over the past few years. They however, will ignore the fact that music content just plain sucks or that the ECONOMY is terrible and maybe people aren't buying their souless content because they need to eat and buy shoes. The main problem with this is that the onus of making the R and D necessary to protect the music and video industries
products as âoedigitialy safeâ, is NOT the public's concern and nor should it be. I simply
don't care how much it costs a multi-billion dollar media megahouse to develop a
system of preventing piracy. However, what I do take offense at is when these
same multi-billion dollar behemoths lobby Congress to write laws that WILL someday
affect your freedoms. This is not the same as understanding copyright law. That would
be a very welcome thing indeed. If the American public understood what the Constitution
laid out about copyright law and how it's been abused by the corporate machine, then
the laws would all be repealed in a heartbeat and new FAIR laws would replace them.
However, that would take throwing out the scam-artist politicians out of both
Houses of Congress first, which won't happen anytime soon.

Thirdly, the laws that are coming down the pike won't be limited to just MP3's and the
occasional MPEG movie. Eventually these rapers of free speech and dissemination
of information want to be able to target people being able to relay information that flies
in the face of the national policy. Any content that can be seen as copyrighted will be
âoeprotectedâ and thus be policed by the some federal agency. That means that eventually the system will be able to hold individuals accountable for trading important pieces of any copyrighted and written material. You see the point will be to halt the few exchange of ideas. The system wants total ignorance and a cover for the invisible veil of the inner
mechanisms in the corporate structure.

Unless the people who have helped to create the wonders of the internet and the freedoms
that it represents get onboard to protect it against abuse, then the last hope for a free vocal and democratic society in America is about to fall further down the rabbithole of fascism.

I don't understand why people don't phone, fax or write the people in Congress. They do hear us. However, they are often reluctant to do anything because they know that the populace rarely holds their feet to the fire over any issue. Only when the professional politicians are threatened, as in the case of re-election do they ask for your input. The ONLY remedy to our current problems threatening the very fabric of the democratic form of government in the United States, is a major third party presence in the Congress and White House, that can clean up the problems. That's the bottom line. More people active in politics and caring just a little bit more about who is in office than what J-Lo wears to the Oscars and things might change....until then we are sooooo
screwed.

Re:The Third Way

[Feztaa]

I'm not delusional about the fact that I'm stealing.

Jesus Christ! It is NOT theft! It is copyright infringement! They are two very different things!

Yes - HOWEVER:

[ghjm]

1. If the FBI started pulling over speeders and making them serve 5 year jail terms, you would presumably have to protest.

2. Speeding is a criminal act. File sharing is not. Copyright violation is a CIVIL matter.

-Graham

Re:Corporatism sha

[I(rispee_I(reme]

Try this question: Is it possible to win a presidential election without corporate sponsorship? I think Bill Hicks said it best when he compared the Democrats and Republicans to a pair of puppets, sharing a puppeteer.

The FBI's new priorities

[alizard]

Nice to see that digital file-sharing, i.e. the digital version of analog tape-swapping which *is* legal is just as important as kidnapping, bank robbery, and terrorism.

Will not paying parking tickets also become a Federal crime next?

Do politicians have a clue as to why they don't have the public's respect anymore?

Perhaps they've proven they don't deserve it.

Just think. If anyone had come forward last year to put up the startup money for a professionally run high-tech PAC to represent us to Congress, we'd be talking this year about getting the votes together to get rid of the DMCA and any politician stupid enough to refuse to cooperate with us.

"People always get the local government they deserve."
E.E. "Doc" Smith

This is as a grim a comment about US geeks (and the ones who aren't doing anything about anti-tech political action in the EU) as can be made.

Re:The Third Way

[Zebbers]

ummm
its not a bullshit argument. no, there may be no inherent RIGHT to the product. Likewise there is no inherent RIGHT to protection. The current protection system is corporateserving and corrupt. Illegal != immoral, as you alluded to.

When a cop pulls me over, I understand why they did. But I may not necessarily think what they did is moral. Insofar as it is their job, yes. But there are towns in my state who use traffic tickets as a sole source of profit. Roads are zoned for tickettaking. Roads that arent profitable are not enforced as much. I find this immoral and a waste of my tax money.

The system is fucked. Do you get uneccesarily mad at the messenger? No. But do you take it up the ass like you really deserved it? No. The line needs to be drawn somewhere.

Im curious though...how DO you rationalize your theft?

Taking the FBI private: the RIAA's own cops

[Zhe Mappel]

Sure, arguably the bulk of US law enforcement already serves the propertied classes, ever scurrying on missions to keep the privileged from the clutches of the unprivileged. Rarely is the reverse ever true. Just witness the Enron scandal: not even Fox-TV watching Americans are brainwashed enough to escape realizing what a swindle occurred there, but just watch as our corporate media report how "difficult" it is to police corporate crime because the issues are so "complicated" - true only insomuch as the criminal laws have been skewed to make such prosecutions unlikely, this for the benefit of so-called free enterprise.

The current legislation proposes something very old-fashioned: the privatization, in a sense, of our law enforcement. Oh, the FBI would still be publicly funded, but essentially their mission would be reconstituted to make them the private police force of immensely wealthy copyright holders. We'd have a situation analogous in substance to 19th century America, with its strike-breaking private cops doing the bidding of their factory masters. Not only would the FBI be the servant of the music, movie and software companies, flattening any and all freedoms that thwart the perfect and unfettered progress of business (while also forging the kinds of interconnectedness that would make it politically and legally hard ever to police those industries).

But more drastically, the FBI would become a tool used to correct a failure of the marketplace: it would become the bludgeon that stops the consumer revolt that is embodied in online file trading - expunging, through intrusion and harassment, any impulse but that of proper obedience. Is a generation of future American debtors missing the lesson of arbeit macht frei? Then the FBI will be called in to teach them the fundamentals!

Mind, this is of a piece with Hatch's outburst last week about destroying downloaders' computers. Such is Washington's obsequiousness before the power it serves, and so deep runs its contempt for the freedoms of average citizens. (It's all fine and good to trot out your defense secretary to call freedom "messy" when it's overseas; but here, of course, here we send in the G-Men.) The Net has allowed the little person a measure of freedom not dreamt of in the corridors of our oligarchy. I don't expect our rulers to rest until they've brought this democratic, not to say anarchical, spirit to heel.

Re:What, you'd wanna live under Il Duce?!?

[riko_at_anubics]

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.

Re:What, you'd wanna live under Il Duce?!?

[delong]

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

Let's clear up the record a bit here...

[Anonymous Cowdog]

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.

corporatism and all that...

[TygerFish]

Determining what is and is not âbusiness-as-usualâ(TM) is difficult with nothing more than a blurb-length report to go on.

There have been a lot of threads here, some philosophically/politically loaded with arguments of varying quality: the first thread talked about control of the economy under Mussoliniâ(TM)s Fascism. Another attacked that one, praising raw capitalism while yet another early note gave what might or might not be an informed view of how the Naziâ(TM)s handled capitalism under the third Reich. Somehow, the subject became very dramatic and youâ(TM)ve got to ask if high drama is justifiable when you look at the core of the thing.

Without drama, there are good reasons to say that there is nothing new in the FBI being made to favor the interests of American businessâ"even businesses whose actions are as loathsome as the music industryâ(TM)s with regard to file-sharing. The proposition of the bill can be looked at as a (sad) comment on the nature of our government: people and organizations with vast sums have influence which often overrides the interests of the massesâ"thatâ(TM)s, âyou and me,â(TM) bud.

We live in a representative democracy and the systemâ(TM)s oddest and ugliest flaw is that wealthy people and organizations direct the actions of government more directly, and more immediately than the slower processes of ordinary governance: this is the âno surpriseâ(TM) factor. The FBI is directed by the federal government, the federal government is run by societyâ(TM)s loudest voices and money is an amplifier that drowns out other voices (If you think this is untrue, you probably like the âBig-Mac-for-you/your salary-x-ten for them,â(TM) tax-cuts).

In the final analysis, it really is a matter of voices. Many of us want to say, âthe music industry has been at the trough for too long and the net has changed everything.â(TM) For their part, maybe a dozen multibillion-dollar corporations with the money to make a politicianâ(TM)s re-election campaigns with their contributions alone want the government to wage a campaign to frighten nameless, faceless people who are costing them money.

This raises two key questions: âWhy is this surprising news?â(TM) and âWhom do you expect to win?â(TM)

That is the FBI job description...

[El Camino SS]

Whatever happened to the millions of cases the FBI solved, or prevented crimes, or caught murderers?

I deal with them all the time as a newsman. That is their friggin' job. They are the federal police and they catch criminals. They work on high profile cases. That is what they do. Slapping them on the back for a job well done? Then you really are going to wear your arm out slapping everyone else in America on the back as well for doing their job right, and keeping society running. I love those guys, but sucking up to their good points just slows down the process... besides it is a special person that can be in the FBI, they choose them for loyalty and determination.

If you want to thank anyone in law enforcement, thank the beat cops in major cities, they are the ones that have to shake the tree daily and find the street punks that are the most dangerous to the public at large. FBI can be patient and call in all the people they want, due to the nature of the criminals they are pursuing. Beat cops are the ones that most likely get shot. Some FBI agents I know have their gun in their desk. That is a big difference in law enforcement style.

Look, the FBI are good guys. But allowing them jurisdiction on a corporate and civil matter is preposterous. It is corporatism. It is where this country is going. Copyright infringement is not outright theft, but it is not allowable either. It is prosecutable, but the FBI sure as hell does not need to be involved in it. They have much bigger fish to fry these days than worrying about file sharing on the internet.

Re:The Third Way

[I start fires]

Jesus Christ! It is NOT theft! It is copyright infringement! They are two very different things!

You're right. copyright infringement is WAY more serious than theft.