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Feds Overstate Software Piracy's Link To Terrorism
Lucas123 writes "Attorney General Michael Mukasey claims that terrorists sell pirated software as a way to finance their operations, without presenting a shred of evidence for his case. He's doing it to push through a controversial piece of intellectual property legislation that would increase IP penalties, increase police power, set up a new agency to investigate IP theft, and more. 'Criminal syndicates, and in some cases even terrorist groups, view IP crime as a lucrative business, and see it as a low-risk way to fund other activities,' Mukasey told a crowd at the Tech Museum of Innovation last week."
When has the government ever presented a shred of evidence for any of their radical claims and crusades?
I thought you were serious until the bit about the IRA in 1986. Windows 3.0 was introduced in 1990. I think Windows 1.0 existed in 1986 but who would go through the trouble to pirate that? It wasn't until Windows 95 that operating systems really had any currency as a commodity (thanks to a ludicrous advertising campaign that changed the computer industry forever); the idea of someone hawking Windows 1.0 alongside illegal VHS tapes is pretty bizarre, to say the least.
But I just got done learning that Open Source is terrorism. Now we are told that terrorists pirate commercial software? Why would they do that if they have free alternatives? Help! I don't know who to hate!!
They're throwing the word "terrorism" around a bit too much here, but at least a BIG part of the movie bootlegging scene is rooted in Russian Organized crime. Telecine machines are really expensive and, believe it or not, bootlegging movies can be very profitable.
No, i'm not talking about grabbing the latest RLS off of Usenet, or racing it across FTPs. I'm talking about large scale DVD pressing facilities that are selling to the guy who is, in turn, selling to people on the street corner. Groups get to release high quality stuff, the Mob gets their source for a DVD. Its very simple.
Or did you all really think that guys were risking serious jail time and throwing down thousands on Telecine machines because it was "fun"?
Now, i don't know much about the warez scene, but I would imagine that its a very similar situation.
Organized crime != terrorism. But a lot of the really large scale operations are certainly not being run by a rogue group of 16 year olds.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
"A Russian mobster selling fake handbags through a middleman in New York may also be selling pirated DVDs in London, counterfeit AIDS medicine in Africa, and child pornography over the internet."
Did he just imply that the child porn was copy written? The whole speech was on IP laws. And what do mobsters have to do with anything or the russians. Think it might be possible hes trying to link mafia, russians and CP, things people dont like in the states to piracy? Come on, russians maybe but the mob and CP is totally unrelated.
This may be true but you have to admit the Republicans are a lot better at it.
Don't be so sure. If compare, say, Nixon vs. Clinton, or Bush vs. FDR, you would have to conclude that at least Democrats are better at getting away with it.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
More strict IP laws in the US will keep terrorists that are in other countries from selling pirated software? I don't get it. Unless they are trying to say that US citizens are the ones buying most of this pirated software, it doesn't really even make sense.
For now. The government has already given itself the ability to "disappear" you, with no legal recourse at your disposal. While the spectre of your child's ears handed to you is unspeakably horrible, so is the prospect of your child growing up without a parent because Daddy spoke out and was "extraordinarily rendered".
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
The DMCA may not have been pushed to fight "terrorism" but it was a bad law and it's successor and enforcer is being justified by "terrorism". The spirit of the DMCA is that you can't help your neighbor even if you know how. That's much worse for society than economic loss by any given industry. People will work for a living no mater what industries live or die. The kinds of things the DMCA prevents are things that would enrich all of us far more than the protected obsolete businesses the DMCA protects. The DMCA is a violation of your rights, fucking tyranny, and that must always be enforced brutally. All of the other reductions of your rights follow from the first - you can't give up a little of your liberty.
There is no difference between the Republicans and Democrats now. They both represent the same interests and are both corrupt. It will be good to remove the Republicans to disrupt well worn channels of corruption but Democrats do not promise fundamental change and they will not deliver it. Both of them will send us to war in Iraq and both of them will continue the crazy attack on your liberty. Nader an other third parties offer some hope but he will be powerless without a well built and successfully elected party.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You've got a good grip on the situation, so I have to fix one factual error:
They didn't even need a warrant, as even under the older FISA law, warrants were not needed for calls that comes into the US from outside it.
Yes they were. FISA explicitly spells out when a warrant is not required, and it is only when it is believed that no "U.S. Person" is a party to the call. A "U.S. person" basically means a U.S. citizen no matter where they are, or a non-citizen who is legally within the U.S. So that means any call with one end in the U.S. (where it isn't known the party in the u.s. is here illegally), or even a call that takes place entirely in a foreign country that includes a U.S. citizen, requires a warrant.
However that said, the argument that they needed a new law is BS because here is what they could have done perfectly legally: Tap the call in question immediately, and then any time within the next three days showed up before the FISA court to ask for a retro-active warrant. And as FISA's record clearly shows, if they had any reason at all to believe the call was suspect, FISA would have granted the warrant.
In other words, and this is important because it applies to all the recent surveilance too: The only reason not to get a warrant is if they had no reason at all to believe that the call is of any interest, not one tiny scrap of hearsay to suggest that it's a terrorist call. It means that as far as they knew, it was no different than the billions of other calls made daily.
So remember, whenever they say they need a new law to let them listen in on certain phone calls, that law would ONLY allow them the new power to listen to calls that are, as far as they could possibly tell, COMPLETELY INNOCENT.
The enemies of Democracy are
This looks to me, to be a move by the current head of the fbi to either attack the internet, or control it.
First we saw wikileaks get shut down by the courts, something completely unheard of, but it happened.
Then we see the story of the illegal hyperlinks and fbi stings.
Now we have the story of the fbi claiming that the terrorists are also software pirates.
I'm waiting for them to say the terrorists run linux and post on Slashdot. Also combine this with the battle over network neutrality.
Can someone piece together the big picture? Am I seeing a conspiracy where there is no conspiracy? Is this just about the fbi trying to increase it's power? Is this part of a strategy to attack the net? What exactly is going on?
What's funny is the Taliban had actually cracked down on opium farmers and shipments from Afghanistan were at an all-time low prior to the US War on Terror. Although there is a report (which is cited in the aforementioned article) that speculates the ban on the poppy by the Taliban was to raise the price of Heroin on the world market, it was issued long after the invasion of Afghanistan and has been linked to a post-9/11 operation to discredit the Taliban. Other sources have noted the reason for the Taliban crackdown were to influence the UN and strengthen their seat on the General Assembly.
Whatever the motivation behind the ban, the facts are at the time of the US invasion of Afghanistan the amount of heroin coming from the country was the lowest it had been in recent history and after the invasion it is at an all-time high. As a heroin addict currently on methadone maintenance, I will say if it were as plentiful 8 years ago as it is now I would have had no need to get on methadone as it is easier and cheaper to get now than it has been in the 15 years since I began using (to say nothing of the hoops MMT patients have to go through thanks to government regulations that make it easier for many people to continue using rather than seek treatment). Given how many heroin addicts were created in Vietnam, I worry about how many more addicted service members we will see coming back from this war where it is so much more plentiful.
- one nation, under surveillance
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
You think you're being facetious, but yes, there is an black market in cheese, and it does have fantastic profit margins. USDA regulations forbid importation of any raw milk cheese not aged for at least 60 days; people who like younger fermented curd really do support smuggling operations of said cheesy comestible from Europe with their $$.
I can assure you, the best way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own.
Basically the organized criminals have discovered what the RIAA and MPAA never seem to work out, which is to say that people will pay for the ability to feel legitimate in their purchases.
Sure the legal justification is shaky at best(and in some places purchasing stolen goods can get you jail time), and the funds are going to people who are likely more morally repugnant than the record industry, but people pay it.