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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?
... Suicide Bomber Edition.
Putting the "death" back in BSOD.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
I can't believe how shamelessly politicians are using the terrorist bogeyman, and how easily people fall for it. Well, yes I can. But really, what's next? I'd like to say it can't get any more ludicrous than this, but I bet it can.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It's a good thing sites like thepiratebay.org are making the sale of physical copies of pirated media much less profitable. Get those Torrents running for Uncle Sam!
Normally I am very reserved when it comes to political commentary. However, this time I simply cannot help but note that the show has certainly reached a new low, and we should all be ashamed of ourselves.
It is absolutely despicable that we've become so fat and complacent, that we allow our government to pull these sorts of stunts. Looking at the proposed legislation, one should note that IP infringement might be punished more severely than rape, if these laws are to become real. Actually, we should see the whole thing as a rape... the rape of our Constitution, and every value that made our society ever so slightly better than the regimes we like to fight so much.
My copy of Windows XP doesn't just *crash*, it crashes into *buildings*.
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.
They overstate everything's link to terrorism.
Everything that's illegal and/or generally not approved of by the US government "supports the terrorists".
Smoke locally grown pot (as most pot in the US is): you're supporting the terrorists!
Download your music through a peer to peer network: you're supporting the terrorists!
Pirate your software: you're supporting the terrorists!
It's the red scare all over again, but with a different enemy, isn't it? "Don't forget to go spend all your money on things you don't need and can't afford. If you don't spend more than you make and support our corporate buddies, you clearly want the terrorists to win."
what's that now?
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.
I would like to thank the millions of people who voted for Bush twice (in no more than two elections), and for Congressional Republicans for something like seven or more times, for making our country both safer and freer, and operated with more integrity, just like y'all said it would be.
But I can't, because that would be a lie.
--
make install -not war
How the hell does that answer his question? Pretty big difference between "Holy fuck we're being bombed by the Japanese!" and "Terrorists abroad are selling pirated, copyrighted material. Better clamp down with draconian laws back home!"
No sig for you!!
They just forgot to find a way to somewhat also cram the "child pornography" keyword together with "terrorist" and "pirate".
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
No, the government really isn't afraid of terrorists, but making sure the citizens are allows them to expand their budgets, clamp down harder on John Q Citizen's movements and basic Constitutionally-recognised freedoms, and allows it to ignore international conventions to the point where the US has already been declared an outlaw nation. Geedubya has already told us the 'War on Terror' will last over a hundred years. That's 100 years of increased taxation, failing economy, and increased repression strictly for the gain of the politicians and their corporate masters. Our money is nearly worthless now, and it's just going to get worse as the government keeps pouring money down the Iraq/Iran/Middle East rathole. Welcome to our wonderful 21st Century, and don't forget to pray.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
If they REALLY want to go after internet sources of funding for terrorists they should start with the spam / phishing /identity theft gangs.
That's, what? Hundreds of billions a year in direct theft and extortion of people's and companies' hard-earned cash, plus more multibillions in anti-malware products, damage to data, equipment, and network infrastructure, costs to overbuild the net to handle the bogus traffic, lost revenue due to DDoSing, etc. Not to mention the ongoing construction and debugging of a technology that can be used for even more nefarious purposes - including espionage and sabotage.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Wow, the Bush Administration has picked some real winners for that ol' Attorney General position. I really hoped they would replace Gonzales with someone who has a little more integrity. Unfortunately for the nation, it seems they're more interested in lapdogs who will parrot the Administration's version of reality, no matter the cost.
Moving on to Mukasey specifically, this little fib isn't the only time he's tried to distort reality. Just a few days ago, he stated there had been "a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went."
The interesting thing about this comment is that it's impossible to know whether it's true. This supposed call was not referred to after 9/11, nor during the 9/11 Commission hearings, nor at any other time until last Thursday.
However, even if we give them the benefit of the doubt, his arguments that draw on this statement are lies. This is because he made this comment in support of increased surveillance, and also to support the despicable circumvention of the justice system with regard to telecom companies.
The lie is that "we knew about this call but we weren't able to do anything because only with this new, super-powered law can we do that". The surveillance laws at the time he says this call took place absolutely allowed the government to listen in on it. 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.
He lied again when he voiced support for putting telecom companies above the law. Even though Mukasey was a federal judge, he claimed that the telco lawsuits would let the whole world know how our intelligence organizations operate.
Fellow Slashdotters, I hope you join me in saying: what the fuck?! We can't continue to let these clowns get away with shit like this. I admit I've been as lazy as most "concerned citizens" in the US seem to be lately, but seriously, I cannot allow my democracy to be flushed down the toilet by a bunch of arrogant fucks who think they can get away with whatever they want.
Yeah, the current administration is guilty of that crap.
What about the last administration and it's wagging the dog wars in Somalia and Kosovo - where there was NO US interest at all let alone oil interests? When groups opposed to the administration suddenly found themselves audited by the IRS? Where hundreds of FBI files on political opponents turned up in the White House (can you say Nixon?)
The parent poster was right. The democrats will violate your rights just as quick as the Republicans. They will just feed you a story you can swallow, instead of one the Republicans can swallow.
I don't get it. How will passing more laws change that criminals will resort to crime to make easy money? Aside from the fact the government didn't present evidence that it's occuring, *even if it is*, how will these new laws make any difference? It's kind of analogous to laws against gun ownership. Even if you pass a law against gun possession/buying/selling, criminals will still obtain the guns, and will still have a black market in guns. I mean, the terrorists are *gasp* making money off the opium trade in Afghanistan, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out they're making money off of gun running / arms sales. I'm not saying they are, but the point is, just because you criminalize something doesn't make it stop happening to any significant extent. Often it just makes the illegal conduct even *more* lucrative.
I've noticed a trend in modern politics that the answer to problems with people breaking the law is to pass more laws. Instead of, you know, trying to enforce the laws we already have. Of course, the new laws never seem to hit their nominal 'target' but instead hit other targets. In this case, isn't *selling* pirated copyrighted materials already a *criminal* offense? I was always understanding that individual, not-for-profit copying was a civil matter, while commercial piracy was a criminal matter. Is that not the case?
More great 'leadership' from our do-nothing government.
So, the situation in the US would be much improved if someone had the balls to clearly state terrorism manipulates senators so they pass laws that only create the impression of security. Terrorists then create so many false positives that they can hide with impunity. What was it? 1 in 300 Americans is suspected of terrorist links?
:v)
As a bonus, fixing this would get the background reasoning for senate decisions investigated and put out in the open where it should be.
Vik
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.
Our money is not anywhere close to worthless. The dollar has been dropping, yes, but we hardly have the hyperinflation that actually results in worthless currency. The Duetchmark in the 1920's was worthless. The dollar is just dropping a bit compared to other currencies. It's hardly ideal, but it could be much worse.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
Its simply naive to think that it didn't in some way support Bin Ladins organization.
Of course, though the whole reason you got the response is you were replying to a post that only mention MJ -- and MJ has been specifically target as somehow funding terrorism -- with what was essentially a non sequitor about opium.
But since we're on the subject, there's two funny parts about this opium in Afghanistan thing:
1) While they were actively trying to stomp it out while in power, now that they're trying to fund an insurgency, the Taliban is absolutely A-Ok with growing and selling opium.
2) The Northern Alliance et. al., aka the warlords we pretend are the "good guys" in Afghanistan, funded their operations from opium sales both while the Taliban was in power, but especially now that the country is in chaos and they're the "good guys" so there's a lot less pressure to stop.
So actually, if you buy opium, you have at least a 50% chance of supporting our side in Afghanistan. Delicious irony.
The enemies of Democracy are
That's where terrorists get their money. And/or drugs depending on which terrorists we're talking about. Why in the hell would you sell pirated CDs for a profit of what a dollar per disc when you can just a) wait for a rich sympathizer to give you money or b) run protection for a drug trafficker for untold millions.
In other news Timothy McVeigh sold bumper stickers and so the Feds have launched a task force to crack down on bumper sticker trademark slogan piracy.
Now,I wouldn't mind if the government could be convinced that terrorists are responsible for spam. True or not, I'd love to see them distract themselves with trying to solve it.
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?
I've been saying for a while now that it's only a matter of time before the term "criminal" was used interchangeably with "terrorist".
Historically, certain forms of government have successfully employed this trick - you just need a massively stupid population and that's certainly what we've got here. The difference, I guess, is that historically certain unnamed governments have invaded other countries on false pretenses and set out to rule the world...oh, wait...
today I had a non-fun experience with my landlord (I rent).
/.ers find that the place you are renting from is NOW, suddenly, starting to do 'inspections' ?
;(
for the last 2 yrs or so, they have been sending out letters saying there is an 'annual apartment inspection' and that I have to let the landlord in.
the thing is, I've read as much as I can about calif civil codes and there is NO provision for 'annual inspections'. hmmmmm.
so today when the maintenance guy came by (he was 'checking' every single apartment for god knows what) I told him NO!. I refuse.
I then asked what they were looking for and he blew me off saying that since I won't let him in, I won't get to know! sheesh!
a few yrs ago there was an 'idea' by asscroft (may extreme shit be upon him) to create something called TIPS:
http://www.havenworks.com/gov/operation-tips/
and today during a web search, I came across this link:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/brimmer1.html
which also pointed to this TIPS thing.
I'm curious, any other
clearly this is a sneak-n-peek but just not done directly by cops. they get our own citizens to rat on each other.
the TIPS thing was supposed to be cancelled in 2002 or so. you don't really believe it was cancelled do you? it just went more underground.
I mention this because the current administration is running a-foul of the law of the land and he's trying to write his own 'king' ticket. they know that by getting citizens to spy on each other, that will keep the climate of fear alive.
anyway, hopefully hearing about TIPS and the 'annual apartment inspections' (that are quite illegal by my reading of section 1954 of the calif civil code. any lawyers here want to comment on that?) will get you clued in and aware of what is really going on in our country.
if the apartment manager wants to 'see your place' they should have an URGENT and real reason and not just to 'check for code violations'.
the story they used on me was they wanted to 'check outlets, the carpet, the balcony, general condition and plumbing around the apartment'. sure sounds like a FISHING EXPEDITION to me. what do you think?
I told them no and they wrote 'refused' on my form. how much you want to bet this ends up in some DC filing cabinet next to my name?
wonderful country we now have, here
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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.
Here's the problem with enforcing existing laws: it requires a politician to do nothing, which means that he/she cannot profit from the current situation. Passing a law - any law - will allow them to claim "I'm doing something!", regardless of whether that something is actually useful.
Yeah, I don't like politicians.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The only benefit of having more laws is that you have more criminals.
Well, dunno about you, but MY purchasing power has plummeted in the past few months like I've never seen before, and I struggled my small business through the Carter years, so I'm not new at this. In just the past year my costs have gone up 40% while my sales have dropped to 1/5th of normal -- and in total effect, this *functionally* differs not at all from the dollar being worth only half what it was a year ago.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
One of the biggest problems modern free societies face is an alleged free press that doesn't bother to check the facts about anything. If they had bothered to check the facts in this case, it should naturally lead them to the next logical question: What else is being claimed as fact with no evidence whatsoever? There's a whole lot of mis- and dis-information out there (not to mention outright lies and propaganda) and no good way for the general public to recognize it when it's spoon-fed to them. God knows the press/media isn't doing its job anymore.
Well people do sell boot-leg software cd's, and some of the people are going to be Muslims, some of the Muslims are going to donated the money, some of which will knowingly or unknowingly support Islamic terrorists it's a given. Now I seriously doubt that funds from selling bootleg software is a significant source of revenue.
A more serious matter is paid sperm donors! yes some paid sperm donors are similarly Muslims, some of the Muslims are going to donated the money, some of which will knowingly or unknowingly support Islamic terrorists so obviously we have to outlaw masturbation to protect civilization as we know it.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Studies by experts show that 100% of those running pirated software have a computer. This means that ownership of a computer may indicate involvement in software piracy, a terrorist act. Police should have new powers to arrest people who exit a computer store with a new computer. Meanwhile, real terrorists should continue firing rockets on neighboring communities while the world does nothing.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Unfortunately, in your insightful response (no sarcasm, that really was insightful and I wouldn't have caught it if you didn't say something), you stumbled upon the counter problem; if software were free, people with the ability would charge for the service instead of the software. If this theory doesn't hold up, open source will have a bit problem in the coming years. Ouch, I just realized how I've just managed to cut myself with a double edged sword.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
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.
People PAY for pirated software? LOL. Glad I'm not funding terrorism, because I don't pay.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If I'm not going to buy a DVD from a store because I can get it for free from the pirate bay, why would I buy a DVD from an obvious criminal?
Honestly, I've never figured out the whole "PIRACY FUNDS CRIME" angle since well, the whole premise of piracy is that I can get digital media for free!
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
'IP' (hate that term) piracy is just small beans compared to Identity Theft, and the government doesn't even seem to be considering passing legislation that would protect the victims from identity thieves and the resulting collection hassles.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Decades of experience shows that almost all terrorist organizations are supplied by donations from middle eastern countries, which has oil as their main product of export. NSA should arrest anyone driving a car, because they are indirectly supporting terrorism.
Read radical news here
Seeing how I certainly wouldn't want to fund such scum, and how it is impossible for a casual consumer to tell counterweight goods from genuine ones, I suppose this means that I'll have to download all of my IP stuff from BitTorrent from now on. Yes, I know, it might hurt the creators; but if you pay anyone, the money might find its way to the hands of terrorists, and we wouldn't want that, now would we ?
If you don't warez, the terrorists win ! Think of the children and keep those torrents seeding !
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.