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

Well

[Psychotria]

I cannot pretend to understand US politics... but I guess if something can sum up capatalism it's this story's summary.

Re:Well

[Ethanol-fueled]

"You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire; you build egos the size of cathedrals; fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse; grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God... and where can you go from there?" -- Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate

Re:Well

[wamerocity]

Ignoring your spelling, that has to be one of the stupidest comments I've ever read. Capitalism? That's your explanation of why our elected officials are so damned stupid?! Nothing to do with with a politician's greed, lust for power, or simple pandering to the people who pay the bills? No, no, of course not. It's a market philosophy of supply and demand with competition - yes, that very clearly explains why a law with draconian limits, pushed by representatives with pockets lined from Big Media, is going to be forced on our country. Yes, it's definitely our market system. How insightful! /sarcasm

Re:Well

[ubrgeek]

Seeing as we're forcing through silly laws, I think we should have one that states no representative or senator can vote on any law dealing with computers unless they take a course on - and receive their - A+. No, it's not the biggest indicator of computer smarts, but it sure is an indicator that they know more than they obviously currently do.

Re:Well

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Very very good post.

With a foreign war going on, energy prices spiraling out of control, a credit crisis in housing, a slumbering real-estate market... why on earth should we tolerate our congress squandering its time and committing scarce government resources to stuff like this? Creating a free stop-loss department for the entertainment industry is *not* a government priority... or at least it shouldn't be. How about we fund NASA, or Fermi, or try to defuse the Social Security time bomb?

People's senators and reps need to know that their votes on this and similar initiatives will inform us about what their priorities are; a vote for this is a vote against [the children|education|science|social security solvency|etc.]

Yes, of course the initiative is just plain wrong, and the reasons why are important too. Congress-critters, though, seem to think in terms more like the above. The governing class most always seems to see expanding government and creating agencies like this as a Good Thing(tm), so philosophical arguments for or against this stuff may not be as digestible to them as simply saying "hey, in political commercials next time around, a Yea vote on this will make you look like you prefer this not-so-popular thing to popular things that are short on funding."

Re:Well

[hairyfeet]

I have written my congressman numerous times over issues such as this,including this one just a few minutes ago. But I am also a realist. Unless your last name is Walton(as in Wal Mart) or Gates,they will simply send you a "nice to hear from you" letter while they file 13 your message. Sadly it is becoming obvious IMHO that just as the drug money has corrupted our police that giant lobbyist checks have bought our lawmakers. Let me use the drug metaphor to demonstrate.

Cops here start at 19k,25-29k if they put in their 20 years. They can make nearly their yearly salary in a month by simply taking the money and looking the other way. They can make even more than their salary in a month if they allow a few of their old high school buds to set up meth labs. How many do you honestly think are not going to take the money?

Same thing here: A congressman makes,what,130k a year or so? They can make that in a couple of months time by simply not supporting anything that hurts the big multinationals and special interests. I have no doubt they can earn even more by going out of their way to support any law that the multinationals and special interests want. Considering the cost associated with an election these days,how many do you actually think will NOT take the money? I wish I knew of a solution,but sadly I don't. The corruption has rotted the very foundation of our government and considering the history of both parties I honestly don't see that changing by choosing a D or an R in front of someone's name. And while I vote green party wherever possible,I know that by being locked out of debates and other media outlets the odds of getting a working 3rd party are virtually non existent. But that is my 02c,YMMV

Nukes, drugs? NO!

[j35ter]

now we know what the next war will be about...

Watch out WoWers!

[aussie_a]

It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from 'dubious origins,' e.g. downloaded from P2P

So if a computer has anything they got from p2p, then the cops can confiscate their computers? So if, say, a cop doesn't like someone's politics, ethnicity, race, sexuality or gender and that cop knows the person plays WoW, they can confiscate the person's computer with no possible recourse for the victim? Sure a charge won't come from it, but they get to make life annoying for that person.

Re:Watch out WoWers!

[Silver Sloth]

I don't know about US law, I'm a Brit, but I do know that if the police decide that they want to make your life a living hell then they can and there's nothing you can do about it. Remember that in court it's always your word against theirs and the courts always believe the police.

So...

[Kuroji]

How do you verify that a file is or is not pirated, exactly? And whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'?

For that matter, do those reps think that this will make law enforcement give one whit about people stealing albums? They already have enough to deal with in terms of real crime, and they're going to utterly ignore this anyway.

Seizing hardware

[Kingston]

It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from 'dubious origins,' Every time there is a police investigation here in the UK you see them taking computer equipment as part of the investigation. Even if no charges are brought it can be weeks before people get their kit back. Seeing how reliant everyone is on their computers now, it almost looks like it is a punitive measure in itself.

Re:Seizing hardware

[witherstaff]

Someone I know had every computer in his home taken for suspicion of child porn. It took a few months but he finally got everything back and no charges were ever filed. They conceded nothing was found and that the open wifi hotspot of his house along a major roadway was probably to blame.

The worse part? The feds kept saying, in his face, "We've found child porn on your computer. How do you explain it." He had been in law enforcement for years and he was shocked at the outright blatant lies told to him about this 'evidence'. No files were found, they just lied.

If we get IP police, I won't be surprised if they take the same handbook from the child porn feds.

This is bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no reason to seize property without evidence of a crime and a warrant. Copyright infringement is a civil matter -- but downloaders aren't even necessarily distributing.

Good to see elected officials once again bowing to the wishes of the trabant factories.

New government type required

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly America isn't a democracy, a republic, or any of those other pretty labels any more.

I move for the new designation of "Corporate Plutocracy".

Can I get a second for the motion?

Police State!

[Bartab]

It's interesting that all the moonbats screaming POLICE STATE!!! over in the Kucinich thread are all missing from this one. Consider that the bill is sponsored by a Democrat, and has passed a Democrat majority House.

If there's any law I've seen recently that qualifies as police state, this is one.

What?

[ilovegeorgebush]

WHY has this become so entrenched with the upper echelons of the US Government? WHAT has this got to do with Congress, and indeed the Government in general? It's a legal issue, but not something that needs further governing by bogus departments created by the corrupt hands of the Bush era. It's sickening.

This is not capitalism

[MikeRT]

Civil asset forfeiture laws are the antithesis of capitalism. They are a means by which the state can seize any property it wants simply by finding some nebulous connection to a crime. Did you know that YOU don't even have to be the one accused of the crime? They can do all sorts of fun things like seize your car if your friend borrowed it, while you thought he was going to the store to buy a case of beer, and he really used to it to drive to a drug user's house to sell drugs. This sort of thing is entirely Fascist in its economics (you did know that Fascism is a collectivist economic system as well as a political one, right?)

Re:This is not capitalism

[Kjella]

Firstly, Russia had communism, not socialism. (Think socialism is to communism what capitalism is to fascism). Communism, capitalism and fascism have one thing in common - they've existed in reality. If we take pure capitalism which is what you'd call laissez-faire economics, you have pretty much the three archetypes where power only resides with the state (communism), commerce (capitalism) or both combined (fascism) and none with the people. The people tries to take power away from the government (e.g. democratic elections, demonstrations) and commerce (e.g. worker's unions, strikes and indirectly through taxes, regulation and anti-trust). We have found that more power remains with the people by choosing democracy over the one-party state and by choosing market economy over plan economy.

Socialism is the pipe dream that you could take this to a further extreme and eliminate government and commerce, gather all power with the people and live happily ever after (in Marxist terms, the "workers' paradise"). The truth is, that much power will make its own structures and become an independent power whether you like it or not. The point is to make a system where the government serves its people and commerce serves its customers, not trying to put fraudulent equal signs. Congress don't do as we want, but they listen when voters flee. Corporations don't do as we want, but they do listen when we hit their wallet. It could have been better but ignore reality and you could end up with something much worse, and socialism ignores reality.

Re:This is not capitalism

[y86]

100% agree There hasn't been a true to form communist government yet. They're all dictatorships claiming to be communist to keep the stupid people happy.

Re:This is not capitalism

[arth1]

Whether you see a big difference between the two parties or not depends on where you yourself are, and your range of view.

If simplifying politics to a numeric scale from 0-100, and you yourself are at value 80, you may see a huge big difference between 70 and 90. However, someone in, say Europe, who is at 20, will see the two as pretty much the same.

And yes, compared to the wider spread most European countries enjoy, the two parties are very much alike. It's only when you compare them from an American viewpoint that they become vastly different.
There's a saying in Europe that the US has only two parties -- the ultra right wings and the republicans. It's very apt that the US Democratic party uses blue as its colour -- that's reserved for the conservative in Europe. And the democratic party is further to the right than almost any European conservative party. Heck, Ralph Nader is considered conservative by the standards in other western countries!

Also, let me remind you that almost every democratic representative voted for the invasion of Iraq and for the USA PATRIOT act. Judging by the actions of congress, I don't think a democratic president would have made much of a difference. The money would have been funnelled into different channels -- instead of going to friends in the oil industry, it might have gone to friends in other industries. But make no mistake, every single US president is bought and paid for by corporations. Including Obama or McCain, whichever one gets elected.

As they say on 4chan,

[The Master Control P]

Everybody get in here! Your senators know that every person who actually writes represents thousands of voters.

Civil asset forfeiture laws are why I hate lawyers

[MikeRT]

Only a lawyer could follow the logic that was used to uphold them. The judges, aka lawyers with power to determine the law's enforcement, ruled that since YOU aren't the one being accused (your property is) YOU have no due process right except to claim your property IFF you can prove that the property really wasn't used in the crime that the government is alleging. Doesn't matter if someone else hijacked your property to do it!

Any normal human being can look at the logic of civil asset forfeiture laws and realize that it is literally a legitimization of armed robbery by the government.

Thought police?

[dougisfunny]

If IP is ideas, which are thoughts.... this would make them thought police?

Re:They can start with confiscating Orrin Hatch's

[wamerocity]

Don't get me started on Hatch. I am so tired of him as our elected official. The guy's been there for over 30 year, and that instantly puts him on my hate list because of how much I am against the principle of "Career-politicians." But he's never going to leave, because we just love our incumbents here. The guy doesn't even live in our state! He has a house in Virginia, and only comes to Utah to raise funds for re-election. What an asshole. /rant

Priorities?

[nurb432]

"prioritize intellectual property protection to the highest level of our government"

Yep, we have our priorities right. With all the famine, high energy prices, wars, natural disasters, etc, we know that IP rights must be the highest priority, to keep that money flowing into congress. Getting that pocket lined is more important then feeding people.

Kick them all out, they are no longer serving the citizens as they are mandated to do by the constitution. Its a breech of contract of their oath of office.

first things first

[Max_W]

First the government should stop credit card fraud in the Internet. It is a mess now with all that worms, phishing, spam, etc. They should do what IS their duty.

I am afraid to use my card to buy a song for 90 cents. Not that I do not want to pay.

But I will not resume walking to the shops to by disks. It's like asking me to start riding a horse.

It's gone, over. Forget about it. Move on. No more CDs. Turn the page.

So, basically, we're ALL criminals.....

[Stanislav_J]

The question is: who doesn't have something on their computer that infringes copyright in some manner? It's not just the P2P crowd -- they might well share some of their booty with others, maybe even providing tracks on a CD-R to friends who have slow connections, or not enough savvy to use or desire to risk torrents. If you've ripped tracks from someone else's CD, technically you're violating a copyright. (Hell, the RIAA thinks that ripping your own CDs is infringement). How many people have software of dubious origin on their machines, either by design or ignorance? (All those grey market Windows and Photoshop CDs that are ubiquitous on eBay, for example.) For that matter, what about the mass of infringing material on YouTube? Download a clip from last night's American Idol before Fox has it pulled, and now your computer is ours....mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha. Even more damning is that there is hardly a website in existence that doesn't have SOMETHING on it -- a graphic, photo, quote, musical background -- that is, by the strictest standard of the law, an infringement of someone's copyright. Just viewing the website puts those items in your cache -- voila, you are now guilty...please hand over the computer quietly and there won't be any trouble.

Maybe this is a plot to help balance the budget. Instead of spending money on computers for all the federal agencies, they just seize as many as they need from all us hardened criminals.

And thus

[J4]

the transformation will be complete. Just think how easy getting warrants will be now. It shouldn't take long for dead tree publishers and $manufacturing_interests to gain "equal protection".

Thanks Retards.

Priorities?

[SuperMog2002]

Shouldn't they be prioritizing protecting the constitution (which forbids unreasonable search and seizure) to the "highest level of our government"

Re:ideas != property

[Curunir_wolf]

Unless i missed it in there, i don't see any thing in there that grants them more leeway to sieze a person(s) personal computer just because they think they have an idea which might be bad.

Maybe you missed this part:

(B) The forfeiture of property under subparagraph (A), including any seizure and disposition of the property and any related judicial or administrative proceeding, shall be governed by the procedures set forth in section 413 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (21 U.S.C. 853),

So just like in drug cases, you don't even have to be convicted of a crime - you lose your property based on an accusation. Think of it as a DMCA notice that not only takes down your site, but also has a bunch of jack-booted thugs coming and seizing all your stuff.

Maybe they will pursue a conviction and maybe not. If you want your stuff back, you have to put up a bond equal to the value of the stuff that was taken, sue the federal government, and prove your innocence. Good luck with that.

Then stop voting for either party

[Nursie]

Seriously, I'm tired of hearing "Lesser Evil", "Throwing your vote away" etc.

At this point it doesn't matter in the slightest which party gets in, things will continue much the same way with minor differences in soundbite.

You can "throw your vote away" because a republican or democrat will get in, and it doesn't matter which. the more people that do this, the more those scared of "wasting their vote" will realise it's not a waste at all, and that all it takes is for more people to realise what's going on.

Re:ideas != property

[Doctor_Jest]

AND IT ALREADY IS. Why do we need MORE laws? We DO NOT. This is just another attempt to crminalize a CIVIL MATTER.

Seizing property suspected of infringing? Are you NUTS?

The copyright holder has all the resources at his disposal to stop the redistribution of his work without consent, etc. This law does nothing but create a secret police force whose sole purpose is to rough up those who exist outside the "established" copyright kingdom.

Read up on the history of US copyright and you'll see that infringing is what we're good at, particularly when it came to books and the like. :)

WE were the rebels opposing the draconian English/European copyrights. I'm frankly tired of the perpetual extensions, lax registration, and overbearing unconstitutional power given copyright holders. (And artist != copyright holders these days...)

Don't we have more pressing issues to address?

[Coreigh]

Is it really the best use of gov't resources and tax dollars to protect profit margins of industries that fail to innovate and develop new revenue streams? I am all for protecting the property of the content creators but we all know that if it was about that then this would not even be on the table. It is being driven... pushed ... shoved by corporate interests not individual content creators.

I of course have absolutely no factual research to back my statements so someone, someone credible, please prove me wrong.

Coreigh

Re:IP is the most important issue facing us in the

[Skye16]

Really? 'Cos I'd happily forgo some money if I didn't have to worry about things like the PATRIOT act, PRO-IP act, and other dubious acts that infringe upon my rights.

Frankly, my right to keep my money is far less important to me than my right to not have my government spy on me, take my stuff without any reasonable cause, etc. I guess you're feeling the opposite way, which is fine, but I don't give a damn about money, so maybe that's why I just don't care in comparison.