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FBI Prioritizes Copyright Over Missing Persons
An anonymous reader writes "The FBI has limited resources, so it needs to prioritize what it works on. However, it's difficult to see why dealing with copyright infringement seems to get more attention than identity theft or missing persons. In the past year, the FBI has announced a special new task force to fight intellectual property infringement, but recent reports have shown that both identity theft and missing persons have been downgraded as priorities by the FBI, to the point that there are a backlog of such cases."
The FBI exists to protect profits. In fact the government exists to protect commerce, the very basis of our society
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Their DNA lab is so backed up, they can't effectively pursue any violent criminals, so evil copyright violators are the low-hanging fruit.
This is the "change" we voted for?
Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.
--- John Locke, 2nd Treatise of Gov't vis-a-vis US Const, 5th and 14th Amendments.
The argument then becomes whether ideas can be property. The US Constitution, by implication, says no - "Writings and Discoveries" are an "exclusive right" only for a "limited time," a clear statement that "intellectual property" is not property at all, but a limited and artificially constructed grant of rights.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Every dollar not spent on bad movies and pop music is one more dollar that can be spent on productive industry.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying. Probably it's that chorus of nerd rage that the well-crafted headline and misleading summary invoked on demand.
How does finding rapists and prosecuting them help corporate profits and the economy at large? Women who are raped should just go home and take a shower and get over it, and get back to work so their employer doesn't suffer any loss of profit.
(in case it wasn't obvious)
INCORRECT: The FBI is NOT prioritizing copyright over missing persons.
CORRECT: The FBI has a backlog of missing person DNA to run in the DNA labs. The FBI is increasing the amount of manpower assigned to copyright.
I don't know how much the FBI should spend at all on copyright, but it is a bit of a stretch to take the current facts and say that copyright is prioritized over missing persons.
I would relabel that as "Unsubstantiated" and "Factual", for unless you can prove your former assertion, is too strong a labeling. They could be prioritizing copyright over missing persons like the summary implies, and though this is unsubstantiated quantitatively, it cannot blatantly be labelled "incorrect", unless somebody knows otherwise. [citation?]
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
CORRECT:
The FBI has a backlog of missing person DNA to run in the DNA labs.
The FBI is increasing the amount of manpower assigned to copyright.
If they have a big backlog in the DNA labs, but they're increasing the manpower assigned to copyright "crimes", then that looks to me like they're prioritizing copyright over missing persons. If missing persons were a higher priority, they would devote more resources to their backlogged DNA labs, so that they wouldn't be backlogged any more, and they wouldn't devote any more resources to copyright.
So it looks like the summary is correct after all.
If they're increasing the manpower for copyright crimes, that means they have money available in their budget to pay those people. Instead of hiring people for copyright, they could spend that money to hire people for DNA labs, or build more labs, buy more equipment to make the existing workers more efficient, etc.
Are you really trying to claim that there's a glut of qualified workers for pursuing copyright cases, and there's zero available workers for DNA labs? Pursuing copyright cases isn't an unskilled job either.
The FBI does not exist to investigate one thing OR another. It investigates what crimes are capable of being solved by lab work and field agents who may or may not have any leads. Missing Persons and Identity Theft are two types of cases where the amount of time and money expended is often beyond the department's means to rectify the relative damages caused.
In the case of missing persons, because some of them don't want to be found, or another department has already exhausted their leads.
In the case of Identity Theft, because the perpetrators are often in other countries, where it doesn't make practical sense to send field agents to sift through hearsay or rumor in order to find someone who might be their criminal, and who, if he's smart at all, has since erased the evidence of his theft anyways.
Perhaps, but "more difficult" doesn't mean "impossible". All the money being spent on increasing staffing for copyright cases could be spent on DNA cases instead, even if the gain is small. The DNA cases are extremely important, and a valid use of taxpayer dollars, since one of government's jobs is to provide police services, which now includes investigative services and DNA analysis. Pursuing copyright cases is not important in the least, and is (or should be) a civil matter anyway. It doesn't require any investigation.
Does it seem to anybody else like Techdirt is actually just self-citing itself for its proof? I don't really see where it's shown that the FBI has copyright enforcement actually prioritized higher than missing persons here. I see references to people saying it's a major priority, but that doesn't actually mean it really is. I think we need some more evidence laid out a little more clearly than what Techdirt has done, at least.
How does finding rapists and prosecuting them help corporate profits and the economy at large?
Rape is almost never prosecuted in the federal courts.
It is extraordinarilly rare for any crime of violence to be prosecuted in the federal courts.
What you are really asking for is a national forensic lab and a massive DNA database managed by the FBI.
People love blaming inherited problems on the person currently in power. Just watch Fox News. No, not for news, but to see how someone can spin anything to blame the wrong party, and then have die hard followers repeating the same garbage.
I only include Fox News because they are one of many sources that do the same thing. The list of counterproductive spin doctors is far too long to list.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.