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."

Comments

Well duh

[Slimee]

When has the government ever presented a shred of evidence for any of their radical claims and crusades?

Re:Well duh

[Lemmy Caution]

The DMCA was bullshit. But it wasn't pushed on the pretext of a war on terror, it was pushed on the pretext of possible economic harm to certain industries. And it didn't result in widespread surveillance, imprisonment without habeas corpus, torture, no-fly lists, fingerprinting at the border (I'm married to a non-US citizen: coming into this country has become a ridiculous hassle). I actually protested - on the streets, with banners and all - Clinton's Kosovo escapades, so don't accuse me of partisanship.

And which of the parties' presidential candidates is beating the drum of war and playing the security-panic card? I think that would, again, be the Republicans.

Re:Well duh

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Sure - while ignoring the reasons for their attack in the first place. Japan was hellbent on becoming a major industrial power. To do that you need oil. Tojo learned THAT little fact touring the state of Texas in the 1920s. The closest/best oil to Japan was in Indonesia, which was under the bootheel of British Imperialism, and to get there you need to go through the Phillipines which was under the bootheel of American Imperialism. So, the only way to fuel their industrial empire was to get the political impediments out of the way, and that meant either appeasing, lulling, or attacking the USA and UK.

They settled for something very similar to George Bush's strategy of "Pre-emptive Attack" and attacked a naval base on an island in an illegally stolen territory within the American Regional Empire. Their strike was an obvious contingency, so the valuable ships (spanky new aircraft carriers) were all sent out to sea, leaving behind (mostly) relatively older battleships and cruisers.

For more facts on this, I would recommend Daniel Yergin's "The Prize".

You are not insightful. You are more of an ignorant troll.

RS

Re:Well duh

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

Then maybe you need to open you damned eyes and read quite a bit more.

Maybe you should go back to the 80s when Mr. Gore allowed his wife and her friends in the PMRC to have special senate hearings aimed at *BANNING* or censoring certain artists they deemed too explicit. Mr. Gore was more than willing to let his wife have her moraliztic diatribe at your expense, to attempt to restrict and control your freedom of choice.

Corporate State or Nanny State, this is what you are voting for.

Re:Well duh

[Lemmy Caution]

What checks Congress at this point? The almost meaningless, yet incredibly powerful phrase "Support the Troops!" Which goes to prove my original point: that critics of the war and its related expansion of domestic policing powers are held captive by accusations of anti-patriotism and treason.

Re:Well duh

[denton420]

It makes sense to me.

If you can make a reasonable, unfounded, and simply ignorant link to terrorists on any basis, it is perfectly alright to circumvent the constitution.

I think if the constitution needs to be trampled on to stop terrorists, then we are lucky to have this emboldened administration down on all fours playing twister on it.

Windows?

[commodoresloat]

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.

Oh no I'm confused!!

[commodoresloat]

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 are a little bit right

[blhack]

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.

Re:oh, how convenient

[N1ck0]

Everything that's illegal and/or generally not approved of by the US government "supports the terrorists". Pssst... The US Government supports the terrorists too.

Re:I call bullshit

[Curunir_wolf]

The democrats will violate your rights just as quick as the Republicans.

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.

Uhh...

[Trintech]

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.

Re:Gotta correct that bold part

[Chris Burke]

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.

It seems clear, it's about power.

[elucido]

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?

Re:You forgot the word "Yet"

[Lemmy Caution]

I think you have to look why many principled conservatives are now supporting Obama: people like Andrew Bacevich, Lew Rockwell, and Douglas Kmiec. I really believe that only a neo-conservative administration - and except for Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller, all the neocons are Republican and the majority of Republicans are neo-con - would have gotten us into Iraq.

Douglas Kmiec's basis for supporting Obama is an interesting one, as well, because it seems he is one of the few people who actually has been listening to what Obama has been saying and watching what he has been doing. Obama is a Democrat who tells the underclass to stop relying on the state, being particularly critical of the culture of dependence that has harmed the African American poor over the past several decades. This doesn't make Obama a conservative. He's not. But then, who is? Certainly not McCain.

Re:I call bullshit

[0111 1110]

from the creation of a "Department of Homeland Security" (my God, what an Orwellian phrase) to the defense of torture, extraordinary renditions, no-fly lists, etc. I'm an anarcho-libertarian and would like to see most politicians dead. I kid you not. So I don't have a horse in this race. I think the whole democrat-republican dual party system is a sick joke. But even I have to admit that Bush Jr., Mr. Monkeyman, has done an unusual amount of damage to our "way of life", more than Osama Bin Laden could ever dream of doing. It is just sad. I won't mind seeing the republicans take a breather in the next election. Well as long as we don't end up with Hilary, who I find extremely annoying and repulsive. And could we please get a president who doesn't look and act like a monkey and who has at least the slightest hint of charisma? Most of our presidents have all the personality of a dried turd. Why can't we just inherit the ex-prime ministers of England? Most of them have 10 times the charisma of our last 4 presidents put together.