H.R. 4279 Would Establish Federal IP Cops

MrSnivvel writes "H.R. 4279, Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, is gaining momentum in Congress. It passed the House a few days back. It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from 'dubious origins,' e.g. downloaded from P2P. If passed into law, the bill would establish an Intellectual Property Enforcement Division within the office of the Deputy Attorney General. Rep. John Conyers says the goal is to 'prioritize intellectual property protection to the highest level of our government.'"

Comments

Direct violation??

[consonant]

Is this not a blatant transgression of the 4th Amendment?? Back to the dark days of the writs of assistance..

Copyright infringement as a criminal act - that's just wrong. And scary. Too long has this corporate fellatio been going on..

And as an additional WTF:

"This is a strong, common sense measure that provides new tools and resources to help protect one of this nation's most important economic engines," says Mitch Bainwol, chairman/CEO of the RIAA.

Britney Spears/Justin Timberlake/Beyonce/Dude, Where's My Car?/Gigli are the USA's most important economic engines? Or at least, the engine's constituents??

Goddamn. Just, goddamn.

p.s: TFA's dated May 6th. Isn't this coming a tad late on /.?

Re:Well

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

So the democrats in control of the house are basically in Satan's personal employment ?

Not that I entirely disagree, but this seems a bit strong, even for them.

Here's the roll call :

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2008-300

Here's the (short) list of "No" voters :
Nay CA-4 Doolittle, John [R]
Nay TN-2 Duncan, John [R]
Nay AZ-6 Flake, Jeff [R]
Nay TX-14 Paul, Ronald [R]
Nay TX-2 Poe, Ted [R]
Nay GA-3 Westmoreland, Lynn [R]
Nay AK-0 Young, Donald [R]
Nay VA-9 Boucher, Frederick [D]
Nay OH-10 Kucinich, Dennis [D]
Nay CA-16 Lofgren, Zoe [D]
Nay WI-4 Moore, Gwen [D]

Barack Obama didn't vote, but all the IL guys voted "Aye"

John McCain didn't vote either, but one (out of 4) of his Arizona colleagues voted "Nay". The democratic candidate for Arizona votes "Aye"

Thought this was worth mentioning.

Re:Well

[PachmanP]

Good point which means there still may be time!

Sorry to thread jack, but I think everybody needs to see this and I don't want it lost down the discussion...

Everybody in the US of A write your senator tonight! This nonsense needs to stop, and maybe a response from the constituents would make them at least think twice in the future. Don't do what I've done in the past and get incensenced and not do anything. Don't whine on a /. write the letter. Maybe it won't do anything, but we should at least put our effort where our mouths are.

That said try to present a reasoned arguement instead of a rant, or just be short and quick and say you're against it.

Senate Contact Info to make it even easier!