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Copy That Floppy, Lose Your Computer
Over the weekend we posted a story about a new copyright bill that creates a new govt. agency in charge of copyright enforcement. Kevin Way writes "In particular, the bill grants this new agency the right to seize any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime and auction it off. You would not need to be found guilty at trial to face this penalty. You may want to read a justification of it, and criticism presented by Declan McCullagh and Public Knowledge." Lots of good followup there on a really crazy development.
An entire new agency in charge of stopping copyright violations. Wonderful. I am SO glad to know our government has its priorities straight.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
If someone on my schools network downloads an illegal mp3, then the RIAA has the right to confiscate and sell every single router, switch, and hub between the two people... clogging the tubes is bad enough, but taking them away and stealing them?
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
Based on other laws coming out in the USA in the last 8 years this isn't so bad. It just means you should do your copying on the latest most expensive machine in the local shop, report them then pick it up at auction for buttons.
You DO realize Bush has already suspended Habeas Corpus right? For "terrorists", in theory, but wait till they amend this law to label people who do "illegal copying" (or anyone who does anything that deprives any big corporation of profits) as an "economic terrorist".
Although the US courts have blasted him and congress again and again over that, he keeps going at it.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
"I predict that many Republicans will oppose this bill, ... but, becuase the industry that they would be tasked to protect is one that generally opposses them."
You forget the one thing that all politicians value most: The almighty dollar. Once the lobbyists start handing out "campaign donations" you will see every idiot believing in the wisdom of the RIAA/MPAA.
Of course my right to backup copies will be ignored because I do not even have the money to get my representative to blink. I only get lip service from him every two years near election time.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Download some MP3s at work. In comes the MAFIAA, seizes all computers and your company goes down the loo. Whether the company has anything to do with it is irrelevant. Guilty 'til proven innocent. Well, even if proven innocent, the hardware is gone and won't come back.
Is that how I should imagine this?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nobody challenged it when "drug dealers" were deprived of their money and belongings, without due process.
This is just the next chapter.
Bow-ties are cool.
Really, is it just my perception or has the number of stuff that was made a law only to be killed by the courts as unconstitutional skyrocketed? I really wonder, why that is.
Don't know if there's a trend, but it does happen a lot. I believe reason is for election grandstanding. Come the following election, some Congressman can say he's tough on X while his opponent's soft, where X=[crime, guns, drugs, violent games, porn, sex offenders, copyright, gay rights, etc]. This works well for both campaign ads as well as soliciting contributions from companies who take an interest in these matters. It doesn't matter if the courts kill the law; the poor guy still tried and it's not his fault those Commies on the bench ruined everything. Or so he says.
Similarly, that's also where you'll see the 417-3 votes, where somebody will sponsor a bill against killing kittens, with a line item here or there including funding for pork projects. Nobody can vote against your amendment without voting for killing kittens. And the three people who do vote against it will have fun come re-election time, when the opponent saturates TV with commercials that state how much the guy enjoys killing kittens.
I'm all for revoking America's access to the internet...
could you imagine what a world it would be if the MPAA and RIAA and other special interest groups couldn't get online? Not saying there aren't groups like this in other countries, but they're not nearly as vocal or as damaging.
Due process is out the window since the War on Drugs. And some folks challenged it, but the difference was, no one "liked" the drug dealers... when Grandma loses her computer to the government... people might start taking the 4th amendment seriously. But I doubt the sheeple will notice. Such is life after soma.
At least they had a warrant (such that it was...) when they stole the drug dealers' property. Now they don't even need that to grab your stuff.
scared yet?
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
It may not be long. When you increase the criminal penalties on a black market item, it actually increases the violence because it drives away the more casual dealers and attracts the more hardcore criminals who are more willing to take risks.
etting rid of governmental institutions (federal or not) is not laziness, it's being ethical. By supporting governmental institutions, you support organizations that routinely engage in theft, extorsion, slavery, kidnapping and murder merely by making their did legal. Don't be an accomplice.
Government isn't innately evil, its the concentration of power that is. If all you do is get rid of a government institution to institute a corporate monopoly in its place, then you haven't solved much of anything. That's why its so important to oppose things like longer copyrights, and longer patents. Both tend to create monopolies when what we want is competition in the private sector to actually work. In an era where the barriers to entry are steep enough, it stands to reason that you don't need to reduce incentives even more for someone else to compete.
If Republicans were so big into private competition, then what is so wrong about legislation that ensures that companies do exactly that?
This is my sig.
The problem is that computers are not a hard boats and fish kind of thing. With computers I can use an exploited chinese machine to do all of my downloading, then use a relatively robust services, like Tor, to download that material.
All of this while using a network connection that's three blocks away from me.
The law also says that they can auction off the items immediately, rather than waiting to prove that to violated copyright. You know those honeypots that people set up? Yeah, the ones that only have the titles of material and just junk data? Those computers would be seized and auctioned off too.
This law also doesn't discriminate between illegal and legal filesharing. You terrorist sumbitches that keep sharing Ubuntu via BitTorrent are going to be REALLY surprised one morning.
No, this isn't a deterrent. This is legislation, drafted by a conglomerate of corporations, attempting to address something that is slowly becoming a cultural phenomenon.
This is the same crap as the drug seizure laws. Everyone thought--great, take the houses, cars, property of the drug dealers. However, what's ended up happening is people are having their cars seized because a friend had a small amount of pot. Worse yet people are having large amounts of cash seized with the attitude that you must prove yourself innocent. It doesn't matter that no drugs were found or any evidence of drug dealing, just the fact that you're carrying a large amount of cash is considered a crime. And good luck getting it back!
Friends, our freedoms are being eroded away while we stand by. According to the Supreme Court, municipalities can grab your land under imminent domain to sell to Wal-Mart or someone building condos. Police can seize your cash for no reason other than you're carrying it and now they want the right to seize you computers on the claim that you might have illegally downloaded something. It's got to stop or this really will be a police state.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Please actually perform the function of editors and edit the story. It'll save us the time of correcting your mistakes in the comments section.
Indeed. I really wish there were some procedural way to penalize legislators who pass blatantly unconstitutional legislation. As you say, there's a tendency on the part of Congress to pass this sort of crap to make it look like Someone Is Doing Something and let the courts sort it out later. The problem is, SCOTUS doesn't get a case until someone's directly adversely affected by the law. That "someone" also has to be a good test case. (Sympathetic-appearing defendant, facts clearly on the defendant's side, law clearly open to misinterpretation/misapplication, etc.) Meanwhile there will be a lot of other "someones" out there who get screwed over who don't have the resources to pursue things through the courts to that level and/or whose cases are a lot more ambiguous.
The 4th amendment to the US constitution, that authority that describes the limits of federal law, emphasis mine:
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.
I'm having a lot of trouble reading this in any way at all that can justify trial- and conviction-free seizure and disposal of a citizen's property.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
> leave the US while you can. Serious.
And where would you go that isn't any worse?
Is that your solution to life's problems? Run away from them?
Yes, I think a Libertarian Randist like Paul could be a helluva lot worse than Bush. Bush is just an alcoholic puppet, Ron Paul is a lunatic with damn little understanding of history, economics and politics. The only thing that would really keep a maniac like Paul in place is that Congress would fight him at every turn.
Why people are so addicted to this crazy bastard is quite beyond me. He speaks rubbish. Libertarianism is a fantasy. The closest I know of to a Libertarian state was the US until the Civil War, built largely on Maddison's and Jefferson's ideal state, but the idea of a minimalistic Federal government proved incapable of properly dealing with the economic disparity between the Northern and Southern states and its most obvious effect; slavery.
Abraham Lincoln killed American Libertarianism, and needed to to preserve the Union.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Marijuana doesn't lead to harder drugs, marijuana LAWS lea[d]s potsmokers to harder drugs.
Bingo. When a kid buys pot,he has to basically seek it through underground channels. The same channels that also traffic Meth, Crack, Heroine, etc. When you start going to various dealers you quickly realize that you're knee deep in the drug underworld, and you can ask for pretty much any drug you want and you will get it.
If you just had to flash an ID showing you're 18 or 21 or whatever to the guy behind the counter, you'd be all set. I would prefer that gas stations and grocery stores not sell marijuana. but perhaps Head shops could apply for a license the same way as a restaurant applies for a liquor license, and can be turned down under the same criteria. If the state, county or township doesn't want it there, then they can ban it. And let adjacent regions pull in the tax revenue instead. This is how alcohol sales works right now, where dry counties lose sales as people just pick up their beer at stores over the border.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Which is why we NEED a "one bill, one topic" law.
http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=83
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
...any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime and auction it off. So this includes entire ISPs and root DNS servers?Your ad here.
Is that your solution to life's problems? Run away from them?
I see you're no Einstein.
You are painting a false dichotomy here. The choice isn't between idealistic libertarianism and extreme corporatism. The choice is between a world where the government becomes increasing controlling and dictatorial and a world where individuals are free to make there own choices.
Many of the abuses of the industrial revolution that you cite were the result of corporations buying off corrupt politicians to get what they wanted. It took a massive uprising of individuals to transform both corporate and governmental policies. The government was as complicit in the abuses as the corporations.
In a truly libertarian society, the government would not have the power to act in the best interests of the corporations as they do today. It is even possible that many large corps would not even be able to exist in that environment. The reality is that our current political system heavily favor those with the $$$ to buy what they want, including legislation. Idealistic libertarianism would not be the perfect solution, but a good dose of libertarian common sense injected into our currently corrupt system would help tip the scales in favor of the Average Joe.
It's a mistake to judge past civilizations and societies by modern standards of right and wrong. This is one of the first lessons of anthropology. Past societies have done any number of things (slavery, wars of conquest, gladiatorial combat, human sacrifice, forced religious conversion and/or religious persecution) that would be considered abhorrent by modern standards. Does that mean that we can't embrace the progress that those societies brought in the arts, sciences, etc, etc?
Yeah, that's what I thought. If there were one trait that both Hippocrates and Socrates had the least of, compared most men, it was hypocrisySo it's Jefferson's supposed hypocrisy that bothers you? Even though his actions were perfectly in line with societal norm at the time? Even though he supported efforts towards the reduction of slavery?
One word: context.I fail to see in what context you can use the term "fat white man" and not expect it to stir racist sentiment. It serves no legitimate purpose other then an appeal to emotion and hatred. And I stand by my statement -- if I made a similar comment about somebody like Martin Luther King (maybe something like "nigger plagiarist" or "nigger womanizer") I would likely find myself called out as a racist and modded into oblivion.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.