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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?"
Did anyone notice this bit on the SG-1 Archives forum post about this:
Posted: Mar 30 2004, 11:46 PM
Surely this is interesting and all, but VERY outdated. I would think there is quite likely some more current information available. What has happened in the last four months?
Sigh... well, at least there's some more evidence to cite _against_ the Patriot Act, so when its supporters challenge "Show me evidence of who it's actually hurting and rights its infringing.", we can point at specific things.
I was under the impression copywright violation was a civil offense?
Will they be charging college students who plagiarize geology papers to get an A?
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It's very clear from the article that the MPAA committed outright fraud and lied to the FBI.
They also abused laws and I would not be surprised if they were the ones that damaged the equipment.
Perhaps the FBI are in leauge with them. How else could such gross incompetance be explained.
The MPAA should face charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and the FBI should be put under review.
Oh wait. This was a little guy and the MPAA has a lot of money. Ergo, the law does not apply. They probobly threatened the guy with legal action when he asked for his stuff back.
Expect such underhanded dealings when the MPAA drags 12 year olds/protestors/Apple/Independant Movie makers into court.
May the Maths Be with you!
The FBI claimed that SG1Archive was part of an international conspiracy, raided his home, and used the Patriot Act to obtain his financial records. Man, I'd hate to see what they do to the people that fund this kind of site...
Kidding aside, I'm kind of curious as to what happened. This is definitely a biased article, but what were the official charges brought against him, where do the chargest stand now, and why did the MPAA get the feds instead of just sue?
How many times will the misuse of this 'Patriot' act occur before we get enough politicians to support its repeal (I would say rework but IMO the partisanship in America will prevent that)?
Proof that this act was dangerous came in the 1st weeks when the Vegas strip-club owner got arrested. This act has also been used against kiddie-porn and drug traffickers. Although I like the fact that these bastards get caught, the ends do not justify the means.
This case proves that government and business have gotten to intermingled and inbred, and every politician aligned with these afronts needs voted out. Normally, I would say the erroneous affadavit would lead to his acquittal but I cannot predict our justice system anymore.
As soon as this guy can afford it, a massive counter-suit against the MPAA, MGM, and the government needs to be filed.
It is my understanding that copyright infringement is actually a civil matter, roughly equivalent to breech of contract, and not a criminal matter at all. Therefore, no it is not illegal, but it is sue-able.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
I've no sympathy at all.
This article just goes to show that sometimes a little more research into the topic at hand might bring up some juicier tidbits. After reading *just* McGaughey's website I thought "wow that's horrible", but after reading some of the stuff mentioned on Google Groups and elsewhere has lead me to believe this guy is just a scammer getting busted (or raising the stakes even higher). Slashdot has just sent an avalanche of unsuspecting users to his website, and no doubt there will be a few suckers donating to his "cause".
It started back in Team Fortress Classic
To all those Slashdot posters who write "If you're not doing anything illegal, you have nothing to worry about!" and "Take off your tinfoil hats, the government would never use the patriot act in such a broad manner" -
Guess what ?
What? It's okay to have your property seized and trashed -- OVER A TELEVISION SHOW?! If what you say is true, then sure, he's an idiot. But shouldn't there be a difference in response between being under suspicion of terrorism, kiddie porn, or murder, versus under suspicion of trading low-quality (or even high-quality!) dubs?
If you're not going to donate to this guy's legal fund, you can at least throw a letter the way of MGM's consumer affairs department.
Check out the DATE on that archive snapshot!
The guy was asked KINDLY by the MPAA to take down the episodes (which were of very crappy quality to begin with) and he DID so. That was in 2002, if I remember correctly. I've followed the site's development over the years and they haven't done anything illegal since then. Apart from posting a few spoilers here and there for overseas fans.
So it's you who's spreading FUD here.
TV shows need advertisers. Companies that pay for the program so they can take a short moment to promote themselves.
So if you tell them that, because of their support of a particular program, you will, in fact not patronize them, it will get their attention pretty quick.
I know this article tries to sympathize with the people who work directly on the show, and a boycott would hurt them too. But the copyright holders only understand discourse in the form of money. There needs to be a monetary penalty for the mistreatment of fans. Start boycotting the advertisers and tell them know why.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Clever signature text goes here.
Slashdot is read by people from all walks of life, not all of who have a good undertsanding of the PATRIOT act and its implications. Additionally, Slashdot is indexed by Google (and numerous other search engines). Anyone looking for information on the Patriot act may encounter a discussion on Slashdot, read it, and learn something.
He was referring to what he saw was the lack of need for a bill of rights -- since Congress only had the power outlined in the Constitution.
And Georgia was one of the leading opponents of the bill of rights. They argued that if we list them out, some idiot in the future will think that our rights are limited to just those. The counter-argument to that was, look, we've made this constitution so pure and perfect that it is a machine incapable of producing tyranny, so there's no need. The reality is that we don't even have the rights enumerated in the Constitution, never mind the other natural rights that were never explicitly listed because no one thought we'd ever have a government so corrupt as to trample them.
Actually, I don't agree with this claim; whining on /. about this case may be very important. Here's why:
If we're going to write to our Representatives and Senators about problems with the Patriot Act, we need to have a good understanding of the issues.
I haven't been able to discern the details yet, but if it is true that the Patriot Act was used to bust this guy, then it's an important thing for us to know about. Why? Because it gives us a concrete example to cite when we write our Senators and Representatives to say that the Patriot Act is being abused for non-counterterrorism purposes.
Note that there are a load of "if's" in the above! All we have so far is one person's assertion that the Patriot Act was abused to bust him. We need to get some kind of corroboration before using this example in letters. Letters citing this case could blow up in our faces if it turns out there was no Patriot Act abuse.
Terrorism, I think, is the intentional targetting of civilians by military units, or military-level weapons. But, if my land was taken away and the bad guy's troops were all safe in tanks, who else would I be able to attack?
So yeah, the definition is pretty convenient. In essence, if you're a nation, it's war, unless you're going against the USA, in which case you're a terrorist. If you're not a nation, you're a terrorist. Note that the definition of nation is conveniently vague.
But yeah, our laws always seemed effective before. Police were allowed to ignore many due-process and search-warrant restrictions when in hot pursuit, or when they could show that they believed they acted to prevent immediate danger. Search warrants were fairly easy to get, but prevented abuse by not allowing fishing trips - they had to state what they expected to find, or see direct evidence of capital crimes. (Dead bodies, etc.)
Seemed reasonable. You could get by most roadblocks to get terrorists and other threats, but you couldn't use any other evidence to get a conviction on some unrelated crime to cover up your failure to find evidence of terrorist conspiracies.
So yeah, the patriot act is a crock. Once you're labelled a terrorist you're as good as guilty.
Don't worry. All that terrorist talk is your government terrorizing you so that you'll blindly let in more laws like the Patriot Act. They could tell you what ever you want and if you can't read/understand arabic you're out of luck. Good thing about those color codes for your alert levels, sure makes playing the stock market easier.
The patriot act is not illegal until it is declared so by the US Supreme Court
("Illegal" is a bit awkward in there, unconstituional or void would be more appropriate.)
Perhaps it's a subtle point of law, but if a law is unconstitutional it does not "become" invalid when it is declared so by a court. It was always unconstitutional, always null and void. It was never actually law in the first place. It was merey an invalid bill that conress did not actually have the power to pass. Any enforcement of it before prior to it being ruled unconstitutional was always invalid / erroneous. Any refusal to comply was always proper and legal. Any conviction was invalid and gets expunged, any fines/damages incurred were improper and you are entitled to restitution.
Of course anyone who gets hit by invalid enforcement of a non-law is certainly going to be suffer until the courts publicly delrare that it is and always was a non-law and clean up the mess. But at least in legal theory it was never actually a law and any action taken under it was always invalid.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
For the same reasons that the Romans were blinded to the corruption in their own society. Because they were too doped up on bread, wine, and circuses.
Our modern equals of this would be:
Reality TV
Fast food
Disposable pop music
Hollywood blockbuster fx films
Sport Utility Vehicles
Decoy issues (Gay marriage, War on Terror)
The white fucking picket fence.
Fact, now: RICO is used on ordinary citizens over 10,000 times per year.
RICO is a prime funding tool employed by law enforcement agences all over the country. Property stolen from innocent citizens by police, acting on leads from criminals try to 'cut a deal', do not have to be returned. Write an article in a local paper criticizing a local police, or politician, and you could be the victime of 3:00 AM raid. Even if the lead fingered a real criminal, but gave an inaccurate address, the victims of the RICO raid still lose their property. If you are lucky enough not to be shot and killed (some have been), you can set on the front sidewalk in your pajamas and watch the your 'protectors' take your house, car, and personal valuables as 'guilty property', while neighbors gossip about what you could have done to 'deserve' such treatment. Even with the help of lawyers, which you now can no longer afford, you rarely ever get your property, or reputation, back. The only ones immune from RICO are the politically correct politicians.
Why should I pity the large corporations who have a habit of thumbing their nose at both the law and the consumers?
I agree with most of what you say, to some extent. But, we're citizens, not consumers. As soon as you let them label us as consumers instead of citizens, they win.
As citizens, we control them. As consumers, we are controlled.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
If you feel that the Patriot Act is a bad thing, write your congressman [aclu.org]. Join the American Civil Liberties Union [aclu.org] and the Electronic Frontier Foundation [eff.org]. But don't sit here on Slashdot and bitch, you're not changing anything.
I think you left out an essential one: Join the Libertarian Party.
Yeah, yeah, the [insert your favorite of the big two parties here] party was only kidding when they voted overwhelmingly to pass the patriot act, they're real nice guys, and they promise they won't do it again.
Let's face it, if we keep voting for democrats and republicans, this crap will never end.