Patriot Act Used to Enforce Copyright Law?

iter8 writes " The Stargate SG-1 Information Archive is reporting that the Feds filed charges against Adam McGaughey, creator of SG1Archive.com. The website is a fan site for the television show Stargate SG-1. The charges allege that Adam used the website to engage in Criminal Copyright Infringement and Trafficking in Counterfeit Services. Two interesting things about the charges are that they were apparently set in motion by a complaint by our friends at the MPAA and the FBI invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. Is copyright infringment now a terrorist act?"

Comments

Is copyright infringment now a terrorist act?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, its not. You've merely been suckered by the spin that the PATRIOT Act is in some away a counter-terrorism measure, rather than noticing that the terrorism angle was just to stop you from noticing that the Bill of Rights was being recinded.

Not the point! Think about INDUCE.

[argent]

You're seriously missing the point.

The point is not that he was or was not breaking the law. The point is that this is yet another case of a law being applied outside its original scope.

Every time some new law comes up, people say "what if the law's abused, how about putting in some clauses describing how it's supposed to be applied, so it can't be abused". The lawmakers and other defenders of the purity of our bodly fluids say "CLEARLY the FOO act would never be used for BAR, and your clause would allow some tiny fraction of FOOmeisters to go free!"

So what happens? You get the DMCA being used to enforce toner cartridge and service and support monopolies, RICO being used against churches, and so on...

So here we have the INDUCE act. People have pointed out that it could make VCRs and iPods illegal. Apologists argue that they'd NEVER ban a USEFUL technology, they'd only go up against BAD people who are pushing CRACKING SOFTWARE and PIRACY NETWORKS and scary stuff like that.

Wrong. If a law can be applied in any way... however inappropriately... it will be. Whether it's the Alien and Sedition Act, the PATRIOT act, RICO, the DMCA, or INDUCE... laws like these are an attorney's field of dreams.

Re:Not the point! Think about INDUCE.

[arkanes]

First off, you really need to read something about the Constitution. I can't blame you that much, cause it's a failing lots of people have. I'll start with the most obvious one: LACK OF AN EXPLICIT DECLARATION IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS DOES NOT MEAN THAT A RIGHT DOES NOT EXIST. The Constitution spells out the powers of state and federal government, not limit! The Bill of Rights is actually redudant (and was considered by some of the founding fathers to be harmful), because it's NOT NECCESARY. It's there as a signpost - "These are rights that we consider especially important". Sadly, people through the years have come to take the existence of the Bill of Rights as some sort of definition of your rights.

The Patriot act, at it's core, was designed to remove many of the limitations on law enforcement. If all you really care about is catching criminals, rather than about personal rights or privacy or any of that other stuff that gets in the way, then where you really want to live is in a police state. We've had those and most people didn't like them very much. The protections were there for a reason. The Patriot act was a bald manipulation of public emotion over 9/11 to pass a bill that had been shot down dozens of times over the last few years and decades. It's certainly true that there's nothing restricting those powers to use against terrorism (which was pointed out at the time the bill passed, and ignored). It's passing was dishonest at best.

Now, as for catching criminals - nothing in the patriot act was needed to "catch" this guy. In fact, a simple C&D from a lawyer directly to him probably would have been sufficent. One to his ISP certainly would have been. Unless there's (a lot) more to this case that we don't know about, like he was using the SG-1 fansite as a cover for child porn or sale of nuclear weapons or something, then the amount of force used against him was totally out of line. If there is more than we know, then we should know it - it should have been on the search warrant and it should be in the court case.

The people are not supposed to be accountable to the government! It is supposed to be the other way around. The police/FBI/CIA/etc are there for YOUR benefit, and they are not supposed to be able to act in secrecy and without public justification.

Re:One-Sided Press Release; FUD-ridden writeup

[schmaltz]

The Patriot Act amended many laws that were already on the books that were not directly related to "national security."

It would be nice for you if that were the whole story, but it's not. It should be written "amended many laws that were already on the books so that the FBI wouldn't need to be distracted with pesky Constitutional requirements such as judicial oversight.

Whether this guy willingly broke copyright law, which it sounds like he did, is another matter. Whether copyrights, previously litigated, should be a matter for door-kicking-in police/feds, is an issue that needs to be revisited.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Police State Wish List Act

[Michael_Burton]

Copyright infringement is not a terrorist act. The USA PATRIOT Act wasn't designed to fight terrorism. It was just sold as a law to fight terrorism. (If I were the wild-eyed type, I'd say the PATRIOT Act is a terrorist act.)

Virtually every provision of the USA PATRIOT Act was on John Ashcroft's Police State Wish List well before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 ever happened. After the attacks, it didn't take long to wrap every rotten proposal up with a great big red-white-and-blue ribbon and ram it through Congress. Ashcroft demanded it be passed within three days with no amendments. In the heat of that moment, only a handful of legislators from either side of the aisle dared to suggest that we should be more careful with our liberty.

Easy come, easy go, I guess.

Re:Look at this

[Oddly_Drac]

"How evil of them to enfoce thier copyright."

You might figure out at some point that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the government organ for handling internal federal problems, and currently is enagaged in everything from counter-terrorism thru to tracking down bank robbers. Enforcement of copyright is generally down to a civil action rather than getting a government body to kick your doors down. For one thing, every taxpayer is now engaged in protecting the copyright holders, so now you're not only buying their products, but paying for them to keep the prices where they want them.

Next time someone detonates a large-ish bomb in a city centre, think about whether the FBI's manpower is better spent working for the good of society or the good of a corporation.

As for the moral aspect of it, usually it's considered polite to send some contact first, and generally to a postal address. Getting a PI to serve papers has to be easier on the taxpayer than invoking an anti-terrorism law, just not as scary.

The down side of the long slow bell curve

[zooblethorpe]

I was going to moderate this comment, but I found there's no "sad" category. This is spot-on (heck, I've already left), and the sentiment needs to be better known. Sure, the US has lots going for it -- but so many of the positives seem more like historical legacies slowly being choked to death by the corporate greed and public complacency that has enveloped the country.

And now I embark on some very general theorizing, so bear with me.

Historical comparison:
The Islamic world was a major intellectual force from around 700 to what, 1300 or so? They brought us algebra, among other things. But this drive for knowledge got choked off -- the Powers That Be decided that the spirit of inquisitive examination of the world had learned "enough", and the screws were tightened. And now it seems we are seeing signs of the same choking in the West, driven largely by the US, with greed as the engine.

Suffice it to say I am dismayed. I dearly hope someone (a very many someones) will prove me wrong, but it will take years of very different behavior in the US to bring me around.

Re:FUD ALERT

[teromajusa]

If you feel that the Patriot Act is a bad thing, write your congressman. Join the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But don't sit here on Slashdot and bitch, you're not changing anything.

How about joining the ACLU and bitching on Slashdot? The article may not give both sides of the story, but regardless of whether the guy is a 'bad guy', its not ok for the FBI to take legislation specifically drafted to fight terrorism and use it whenever they see fit. And I don't see any problem with bitching about things that are wrong.

Re:YOU are FUDding here! (mod me up)

[twiggy]

I'm really upset that this article made /. and here's why:

First: Re "YOU are FUDding here!" -- no, he's not. Read the guy's post about the raids etc for a minute and forget about whether you liked his site or liked Stargate. It's totally misleading crap that doesn't even remotely mention that the raid was related to him (even at one point in the past) having hosted entire episodes. No, he makes it out to be an issue of linking to amazon that got him raided by the FBI.

Second: Giving this /. volume traffic, a bunch of dumb monkeys are going to paypal this clown $5 or $10 or whatever, and he's going to pocket it and/or use it for his legal defense. He doesn't deserve $5 or $10, even if he was somehow magically innocent, or even if you argue that "hey, he took the clips down and they still raided him!". He wrote a misleading post trying to get money from the public while not admitting one iota of the truth about the situation.

Also, as people mentioned there's discussion over at metafilter, and someone there stated that he knew he was going to be raided and had been moving around quite a bit before it happened, etc...

The ONLY valid point of discussion here is whether or not the PATRIOT act should be used, and if measures / activism need to be taken to get it repealed. Linking to this scammer's donation/"help my sorry ass" site without even realizing what a scammer he is, however, is upsetting to me.

Re:YOU are FUDding here! (mod me up)

[syberanarchy]

So the ends justify the means? What the fuck about due process? Do you really value copyright over the due process of law?

That's what this is about. The government, bought and paid for by the folks in the cartel, bowing to their masters. If I have to explain to you why this is fucked, I am wasting my time - THE GOVERNMENT IS PROSECUTING COPYRIGHT CASES WITH A LAW MEANT TO PREVENT THINGS LIKE PLANES CRASHING INTO BUILDINGS!!!

Of course, that's probably a moot point to types like you, who will gleefully state that hey, the US govt can do anything they want with their laws, it's their intellectual property, and if you don't like it, you don't have the right to make them do anything...

Oh wait...