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."

Comments

Elementary my dear Watson

[countertrolling]

The FBI exists to protect profits. In fact the government exists to protect commerce, the very basis of our society

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[black3d]

Precisely. Missing people don't pay their bills.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[Kepesk]

I must disagree. Government exists to protect the people and the peoples' resources. It has been hijacked with legal bribes in order to protect commerce over the people. That's what we're seeing here.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[countertrolling]

Protecting "people" is purely an ancillary benefit, as they are more productive if they feel secure and content. The protection of commerce is hardly a recent phenomenon, that of commercial slave trade up until 1860 being a good example. Here again we see the government protecting the property owners above all else at that time also.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[NeutronCowboy]

Or, alternatively, missing people do not have a powerful lobby. Well, MIAs in Vietnam had one, but that's about it. It's a bit disturbing though to see how far corporate support goes in shaping priorities. Or the priorities of the American President. Obama's and Biden's hard-on for IP isn't helping.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[Moryath]

Put another way:

There's no money in solving actual crimes. On the other hand, doing the dirty work of the MafiAA is a way to collect some kick-ass bribes.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[gandhi_2]

Actually, the US Government was a limited social contract to secure Life, Liberty, and Property.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple, accuse the missing person of copyright infringement, rat them out to the RIAA and MPAA,
and you'll have them back in no time.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[GlitchCog]

"MIAs in Vietnam had one" MIAs were exploited to demonize the Vietcong. If people don't hate communism, it's a very big threat to profits. There were guys missing in action in WWII also, but they didn't go on about how they were secretly still being held years after the war ended. They just said they were dead and moved on.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[PopeRatzo]

The FBI exists to protect profits.

Who still doesn't believe our government is being run by corporate power?

As far back as the Franklin Roosevelt administration, in 1933, when it looked for a minute like the US government might actually start putting people ahead of corporate interests, a group of men, owners of some of our largest industries, including the grandfather of George W. Bush plotted to over throw and replace him with a pro-corporate Fascist regime. A rogue general, Douglas McArthur's name was floated as the leader of the new fascist regime. It became known as the "Business Conspiracy" or "The White House Putsch". It was later dismissed by the American Right as "just cocktail chatter" but enough evidence exists to give the story historical "legs".

Now, of course, an easier way has been found to accomplish the same thing. A simple Supreme Court case giving corporations unlimited political power by creating a new entity, the non-human person. There was an attempt by the legislative branch to attenuate the effects of this unusual and precedent-breaking case, called the DISCLOSE Act, which would require corporations who spend these unlimited funds to identify themselves, as candidates currently do on their campaign ads, and it almost passed, but was filibustered by Republicans.

It's an interesting story, the "corporate coup of 1933" with more than a few similarities to our current situation. A good book about it is Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History by Hans Schmidt, University Press of Kentucky, ISBN 0-8131-0957-4.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[oldspewey]

missing people do not have a powerful lobby

If they could find their lobby, they'd practically be home.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[hairyfeet]

We knew they weren't holding MIAs after WWII because we won the war and had boots on the ground. It would have been kinda hard to hold an American prisoner in Germany with GIs all over the place. Besides according to the stories my grandfather and great uncle told there was a reason why we had so many MIAs. It was because during the push across the Rhine the Germans, desperate to slow us down, actually used the FLAK 88 as an antipersonnel weapon, like a civil war cannon. Great Uncle Jerry said when a man was hit by a FLAK 88 all there was left was red mist, not even his boots survived that monster.

As for TFA, can we stop the whole "We, The People" bullshit now and just change the anthem to "Money Talks" by AC/DC? It isn't like our elected officials are even pretending to give a shit anymore. It is just disgusting that a person's life would be deemed worth less than nabbing a fucking MP3 downloader. Just fucking shameful.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[AHuxley]

The Vietnam MIA issue can be traced via http://www.amconmag.com/article/2010/jul/01/00010/ by Sydney Schanberg (two George Polk awards)
Nixon pledged $3.25 billion in “postwar reconstruction” aid, congress did not seem to be interested in spending anymore.
No aid, no POWs. France paid up after Dien Bien Phu.
Every US gov seems not to want to admit they left them behind, so the cover up goes on. Better the fog of war than the reality of been left to rot.
The FBI might face the same with missing persons. Start digging and they find slavery, cults, sweatshop, sex trade and the deep state and federal links that cover/protect year after year.
Generation profit and evil.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[khallow]

It was because during the push across the Rhine the Germans, desperate to slow us down, actually used the FLAK 88 as an antipersonnel weapon, like a civil war cannon.

As an aside, the 88 gun was one of the most flexible pieces of military hardware in the Second World War. You could shoot just about anything with it. I imagine they were shooting people with it long before they got to the above level of desperation.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[westlake]

There's no money in solving actual crimes. On the other hand, doing the dirty work of the MafiAA is a way to collect some kick-ass bribes.

The entertainment industry is worth billions of domestic spending and export dollars. It is a labor-intensive and generates a lot of high wage - high skilled - jobs.

It is important to the economies of states like New York, California, Florida and so on. The Senator from Nebraska votes wheat and corn. The Texan cattle and oil.

Think interests not bribes.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[mwvdlee]

So, is it "MaFBIaa" now?

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[JWSmythe]

For quite a while, they have had significant interest in high dollar crimes, versus no dollar crimes. A missing person is a missing person. Unless they are a high profile person (celebrity, politician, or wanted fugitive in the media), there is little to no interest.

I do recall a few instances (personal knowledge, not from the media) where there was a crime committed. They did involve a financial loss. About 15 years ago, the amount had to be greater than $3,000. About 4 or 5 years ago, the amount had to be greater than $6,500.

If, for example, someone broke into a large network, which incurred a large dollar amount of damages (securing equipment, changes of company security protocol, recovery of lost data from backups, loss of income due to media coverage), that's a big deal. High dollar companies always donate well to political parties. While it makes the news that Company X donated to a particular politician, you'll likely find that they did the same to all politicians. Businesses don't usually gamble on anything as unpredictable as elections. They'll play all sides to ensure they are covered. Donations to the wrong people are just considered part of playing the game.

Compare that to say a serial killer who has killed 3 people in the last 5 years, and those victims were not well politically tied to anyone. The interest level goes down to almost nil.

There was a bit of activity regarding a known serial killer activity. It likely involved 500 female victims. Wow, 500 women killed by serial killers, they'll surely put everyone they can on it. The last update was in 2009, and in 5 years there were 10 suspects in custody, suspected to be involved in 30 murders. Have you heard any updates on this? "Suspects" in custody does not mean the killers are in custody. They're just people who they believe may be the killers. Meanwhile, the murders continue.

It isn't due to mismanagement of resources exactly. Companies lean on their political "friends". The politicians then lean on the FBI, and the work gets done. While this should be considered mismanagement, the FBI is a government organization, and political pressures do come into play. Sure, if my company just lost $100 million dollars, I'd prefer the FBI take that over another case, but it shouldn't work that way. I, a multibillion dollar firm (I wish), may need to remind a few Congressmen that they are in office because of my huge donations, and my case will get priority.

Political pressures aren't the only ones they are under. High profile media cases get handled differently. A friend of mine was a victim of a Nigerian scam. It was a high dollar case. First I laughed at them for being stupid. There was an exception to the normal case though. The scammer was still in communications with them, and they hadn't told the scammer that they figured out what happened. They called the local FBI field office, and their statement was taken. A couple weeks went by, and nothing had happened with the case.

I pulled a couple strings, and I asked a media outlet to make a friendly request that it be looked at further. The media outlet was very friendly about it. They simply sent an email over saying "Please have a look at this. We understand the difficulties in prosecuting such a case. If you do manage to make an arrest, we would love to publish the story. If not, we won't run anything about it." They mentioned a bit more about the information on the case, and that the scammer was still in contact asking for more. My friend got a call at 9am from a FBI investigator, and they were at my friends house later that day (agreed upon by my friend). Emails between the parties were gathered (with consent, not warrants). My fir. A voluntary tap

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[davester666]

Alternately, the sooner they are not found, the sooner all their property goes into probate, where the state takes their cut, and as a bonus, if there are no inheritors, they get everything left.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[dargaud]

Who still doesn't believe our government is being run by corporate power?

I don't. I do believe our entire society is powered by groups of people. That sounds like "corporate power" to me.

Bzzzt. A group of people doesn't exercise its power like a corporation. If you are an employee of a corporation or even a small shareholder, you don't have a say and you often don't even know what's going on during old boys golf outings. A 'group' of people may be more democratic, but you left out how that group is managed.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[kiddygrinder]

i'd make one correction there, it makes a lot of high skilled jobs and a lot of high wage jobs and a smattering of high skilled - high wage jobs

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[linzeal]

That is why the vast majority of money besides directly levied taxes does not come from criminal fines for murder/rape/molestation but DUIs/Speeding/Parking. In fact, some counties now depend on that money to operate because they have factored the money raised by these fines in their budgets and can even borrow against the future returns using crimes that have not been committed as collateral, and you thought government was here to protect you.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[marcello_dl]

It's the same government that let outsourcing happen. Why should they care about one industry and let entire sectors like manufacuring be lost?

I tell you. Entertainment has the double role of propaganda (proposing models for our youth, so they think they're against the system by spraying paint on walls or paying to get brain and ear damage, and measuring art and success in terms of $$$), and the trojan horse to push for IP laws. Intellectual property is just the big guys excuse to transform the virtual world into a market: in a purely virtual world a startup can compete with estabilished giants. When IP laws shape it, though, being first and being bigger begins to offer an advantage again like scale economy and banks covering your ass do in the real world.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[Arancaytar]

Ironically, with the tax breaks corporations get, they don't pay much of the bill either. Of course, they finance the government in a less direct way via campaign donations.

Re:Elementary my dear Watson

[hairyfeet]

While I'm sure they used it before the Rhine, Uncle Jerry said by the time they hit the Rhine it truly was a different war. Before the Rhine it was strictly German Army regulars (which BTW both my uncle and grandfather respected the Germans and HATED the Italians. They both said the German soldiers, while tough as hell, did follow military code for the most part. The Italians were backstabbing SOBs according to them that would pretend to be on the side of whomever they thought were winning that week. NO loyalty according to them) by the time they both got to the Rhine they said anything and everything they could throw they did.

Uncle Jerry told a good story that illustrated this, while at the edge of the Rhine he dropped a sniper. He said while he and his CO were stopped in their jeep checking a map the CO's head was blown clean off by a sniper. He saw the flash, hit the ground by the jeep, and emptied about 3 clips from his Garand (a wonderful field rifle in his opinion) on the position. He said when he reached the position he found a woman roughly 6 months pregnant and damned if she wasn't reaching for her rifle to try to get another shot, so he dropped her on the spot. "Did it bother you to kill a pregnant woman?" I asked, "Fuck no!" he said "By that time I had seen friends ground up in the hedge, sniped, burned, and turned into nothing but red mist by the 88s. We all knew the war was as good as over with the Russians gaining as fast in the east as we were the west and damn it, my ass was gonna go home to my family and not in a fucking body bag".

He said by the time he and my grandfather made it to Germany it was unlike anything you can imagine. He said all the black smoke and craters looked like some scene from hell, but damned if those Germans would give up. He said one of his happiest days was when he learned we dropped the Atomics on Japan, because he had two brothers in the Pacific and knew the Japs were even worse than the Germans for refusing to surrender and he knew that an invasion of the home islands would have been a bloodbath on both sides. He said it was only a shame we didn't have it in 42 or 43, maybe we could have dropped one on Berlin and saved those millions of German men that died at the fronts for nothing.

Getting found is as easy as torrenttorrenttorrent

[Pozican]

Next time I'm kidnapped; I'll be sure to start pirating music and movies. Maybe they'll find me!

The economy is in the tank

[overshoot]

Identity theft and missing persons aren't costing $500 billion a year, are they?

Re:The economy is in the tank

[Anonymous Coward]

The economy is shit precisely because of intellectual property. China will never buy IP - why would they? They can pirate all they want as US police have no jurisdiction. So anyone who produces IP, instead of things that can be exported, represents a net loss of wealth to the country - they take money *only* from other Americans, while spending that money all over the world.

Re:The economy is in the tank

[Nadaka]

Every dollar not spent on bad movies and pop music is one more dollar that can be spent on productive industry.

Re:The economy is in the tank

[Kjella]

So anyone who produces IP, instead of things that can be exported, represents a net loss of wealth to the country - they take money *only* from other Americans, while spending that money all over the world.

What does the US economy more good - buying a movie made by Americans or buying cheap imports from China? Reducing imports by producing something valuable domestically is just as important as increasing exports if you want to reach a trade balance. There's plenty of rich left in the US, but pretty much the whole meat of the economy has been moved to China so there's nothing produced in the US worth buying and so the unemployment stays at 10%. Killing a "local" industry, even if it doesn't contribute to export only makes the situation worse.

The real problem is that the US has a fairytale economy driven only by consumption and retail. Everything done to kick start the economy is about getting people to spend more money they don't have, because it creates the illusion of stability and recovery when the problem runs much deeper. The real problem is that retail outlets are worth very little to anyone else, they only have value as long as they serve people with money. And even those people still with a job should take note and realize they need a nest egg for a long and ugly unemployment, I find the consumer confidence astoundingly high given the circumstances. But then nobody saw the credit crunch coming to slap them silly either, so I guess they won't see the structural crisis either...

Re:The economy is in the tank

[DavidTC]

I'm glad someone else understand the problem. I don't know how to fix it either...I don't think encouraging spending is as pointless as you think, but that's simply because I have no other options.

For the past three or so decades we've steadily been shipping jobs out while borrowing against everything we own so we can purchase stuff.

It used to be US workers made something, and got paid via the profit on selling that, and with their paycheck they could purchase other stuff.

Now it's the Chinese who make stuff, it's the rich who get the profit, and normal people buy stuff by having absurd mortgage that don't require them to pay anything...until they reset. Or they borrow on credit cards, or whatever.

The rich, of course, like to pretend the reason we have no industry in this country is taxes, because, apparently, if we reduce taxes by 10%, companies will bring the jobs back and pay workers three times as much as they cost in China. Um, no.

The solution to this is problem is get rid of the entire WTO and the treaties disallowing 'protectionism'.

I'm all for free trade between countries with equal standards of living. If Canada can provide steel for cheaper than the US, fine...we can provide other stuff cheaper than they can, and it's the ciiiircle of liiiife...I mean, the circle of commerce. We can buy stuff from each other.

But when the workers are being paid ten cents an hour, we need to check at custom and saying 'Well, okay, you owe us roughly enough to bring it up to minimum wage...oh, and you had them in an unsafe factory, so that's a rather large fine, and you appear to have them work 10 hours a day without a break, so another fine...'

We need to make sure the cost of labor (and damage to the environment, and safety standards, and all sorts of things) is roughly the same for all goods sold here, or at least the minimum allowed here, whether or not they're made here. And, yes, companies would abuse that, and lobby the government to have their industry 'protected' from the evil competition of some German company that's just better than they are at making toasters...but, OTOH, they do that now, even though it's not allowed, and they also do the same thing via getting government subsidies. Saying 'corporations would get too much incentive to manipulate the government' is a bit like saying 'serial killers would get too much incentive to murder people'.

And as an aside, I absolutely hate how copyright is in this country, and would like to see it altered to the near original terms, where you had to apply for it and it was for a much shorter period of time. I suspect that would do nothing to the production of it...it's only in crazy-world that people produce a movie because the copyright is 90 years and thus they might coast on it the rest of their lives, vs. it only being 28 years so...they might coast on it most of their lives. People don't go 'Sure, doing that sounds great, but in three decades I'll stop making money from it, and then what?' We don't seem to need to provide these sort of 'lottery-like rich-for-the-rest-of-your-life incentives' to any other industry, and 95% of the time, the results would be no difference at all, as no money comes from stuff that old.

Ad the remaining 5% of the time, when the thing is popular enough to be paid for 30 years later, well, those people have probably made enough to live comfortable on it after 28 years of profits...and it being in the public domain doesn't take away who they are, they're still the famous actor or the famous writer or whatever, they can probably easily find work. I mean, if the Beatles' copyright had expired by 1999, do we really think McCartney or, hell, Ringo, would be broke?

So while I'm for US industry, I not only think our current copyright terms don't help it, I suspect they hurt it, because our public domain isn't growing any bigger.

Shocking!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Does the FBI know how many missing persons may have disappeared carring ipods with hundreds, even thousands, of tracks being illicitly enjoyed by their captors, even as we speak, in various isolated cabins, underground dungeons, and seedy motels all around america?

How could they be so blind?

No need to ask

[airfoobar]

Missing persons haven't spent millions in lobbying, while the copyright industries have. It's distressing how easy governments are to buy these days, and the US seems to be doing its absolute worst lately -- they are almost dropping all pretence and simply doing what the corporate masters tell them to do.

Obvious reason

[Joe Snipe]

Follow the money.

Ah, if only missing persons were worth more

[md65536]

If there were a missing persons industry, then we could assign an imaginary and excessive value to "loss of profits" due to missing persons. Then they could be considered as valuable as a CD, and the FBI could put more effort into investigating.

Re:Ah, if only missing persons were worth more

[bsDaemon]

There's an industry of making people go missing in Colombia... I hear its fairly profitable.

Re:Ah, if only missing persons were worth more

[lawpoop]

If there were a missing persons industry

Human trafficking is big in the US, bigger than you would expect, and it's flying under the radar.

Better Idea

[Rivalz]

Kill all birds with one stone.
1) Every person should be copyrighted
2) Any missing person should be considered abducted and cross filed under copyright theft
3) Any person that has gone missing should be cross filed under identity theft as it could be an abduction, copyright abduction / theft, and a missing person at the same time.

I could find sarcastic ways to connect ident theft & copyrights to possibility of missing persons but I'm lazy.

Re:Better Idea

[catmistake]

Every person should be copyrighted

Like a number of slashdotters, I was a shy kid. I didn't like birthdays at all, because on that day, I hated being the center of attention. I didn't like being looked at, and I espescially didn't like posing for photographs, or anyone taking my picture or a video of me. And I thought I came up with a great solution. I must have been like 12, but the idea was, I would copyright my likeness, my voice, and my story, everything that made me what I am, and then, in theory, I could control the flow of information about me. Ultimately, I felt, no one could even legally look at me, because to do so, one would have to collect photons that bounced off me, and recreate a likeness of me upside down on their retina, thus violating my copyright. But in the years since I learned something about the law... just because something is possible with the law, it doesn't matter... the law is there for convention. Only convention, that is, what all those concerned with the law agree upon is ok, then it's ok. So... it's ok to punch someone in the face without fear of prosecution... so long as their not rich. It's ok to jail someone for years before trial, because it's done... effectively punishing them before conviction. It's quite effective. Any one that comes up with something very clever and useful in law is going to lose their credibility, no matter how honest they are. The retards run this place. Just go about your business and hope no one notices you.

Re:Better Idea

[c6gunner]

No, you're thinking of cloning. Rape would be creating a derivative work without the authors permission.

Re:so that bigger then going after rapist in DNA l

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Actually...

[msauve]

property rights.

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.

Re:Actually...

[cpt kangarooski]

Of course, the law of property -- at least for everything beyond what the owner can personally defend against the world by means of force -- is also one of limited and artificially constructed grants of rights. Which isn't to say that copyrights are a branch of property law, but rather that property rights are just as artificial.

Re:Actually...

[msauve]

You can state that as fact, just as Locke states the opposite. Hobbes vs. Locke, it appears.

the grass my horse has bit; the turfs my servant has cut; and the ore I have digged in any place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property, without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them ... The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. ... The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.

---Locke, ibid.

Re:Actually...

[erroneus]

To some degree I have to disagree with you in the sense that "property" has always existed and have always been defended by [threat of] force. Adding force of law behind it actually serves to limit the amount and type of force allowed when protecting one's property. In Texas, I can't shoot a man on my front porch, but I can shoot a man in my home. So if I shoot a man in my home and he flies out the door, I had best drag him back in before the police arrive. Also, if someone is outside messing with my car, I can't do much about it because the law prohibits force in that case. It also prohibits any protection method that may result in injury to a potential theif... so no electrocutions or gases or explosives or incediaries.

So what you are looking at is actually the other way around as without property law, people would be permitted to defend their property with deadly force... and while that is still true, the circumstances are severely limited... by law.

Re:Actually...

[skywire]

It is odd how "intellectual property" has come commonly to be misapplied to copyrighted works. I'm not sure whether it is due to an intentional propaganda campaign, or just careless speaking. The works themselves are not property. What is property is the copyright. So no, the argument is not whether ideas can be property. Even those who support copyright, if knowledgeable about the Constitution and the law, do not claim that ideas are property. I fully agree with you that a copyright is a limited and artificial monopoly, but it nonetheless bears all the characteristics of property (for which see any introduction to property law), however artificial and unjust you and I may agree it to be.

Re:Actually...

[jd2112]

It's called "Intellectual Property" because you only think you own it.

Re:Actually...

[toastar]

Wow.... "the turfs my servant has cut".... He was a slave owner this brings new meaning to "preservation of their property."... I'm thinking we need a 21st century idea of rights, not ones based around the idea that the state existed to preserve ones right to oppress other people.

Re:Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow.... "the turfs my servant has cut".... He was a slave owner this brings new meaning to "preservation of their property."... I'm thinking we need a 21st century idea of rights, not ones based around the idea that the state existed to preserve ones right to oppress other people.

It's possible that he did not mean an uncompensated slave. He may have meant a paid servant. Indentured servants were not uncommon during his time. Many of them (most?) were white. They had rights. They were not bought and sold like property. Rather, their labor was traded for a certain value on the open market. The modern equivalent word would be "employee".

I suppose it's possible he meant "slave" but the distinction between a "slave" and a "servant" existed during that time. When you talk of people like Hobbes or Locke, you are talking about educated men who said what they meant. The conflation of "slave" and "servant" is something they would have recognized as an error in all likelihood. Without knowing more about the personal lives of those men and whether they personally owned slaves, I believe you are leaping to conclusions based on some emotional overreaction to a word. Yes slavery was horrible and one of those things that makes me almost ashamed to be a human being because men will actually do such things to other men ... that does not mean that these two particular men were guilty of such crimes against humanity.

Re:Actually...

[Devout_IPUite]

No, really, John Locke was HEAVILY involved in slavery...

Re:Actually...

[causality]

Of course, the right of free speech - at least for everything beyond what the owner can personally defend against the world by means of force -- is also one of limited and artificially constructed grants of rights. Which isn't to say that property law is a branch of speech laws, but rather that free speech rights are just as artificial.

FTFY

YW :)

The Constitution of the USA is not based on such a premise. If it is the USA of which you speak, then you make a fundamental error. The basis of it is not that rights can be granted. The basis of it is that we have inalienable rights because we are human beings. We have those rights merely because we exist. The purpose of governemnt, then, is to recognize and protect those rights. That's the reason we have a legal system. Such rights are absolutely not "granted" or "given" but are merely acknowledged and honored.

The only way things can be "artificial" is if you have a model of feudalism where there is a poltiical elite which holds all the power. Otherwise there is the rule of law where all people are equal in the eyes of the law and all have the same fundamentl rights.

That's what is missing from the "living document" view of the Constitution. To folks who hold such a view, phrases like "shall not be infringed" are ambiguous and open to interpretation. I reject this viewpoint entirely.

Re:Actually...

[Jedi Alec]

The Constitution of the USA is not based on such a premise. If it is the USA of which you speak, then you make a fundamental error. The basis of it is not that rights can be granted. The basis of it is that we have inalienable rights because we are human beings. We have those rights merely because we exist. The purpose of governemnt, then, is to recognize and protect those rights. That's the reason we have a legal system. Such rights are absolutely not "granted" or "given" but are merely acknowledged and honored.

Which is a lovely philosophy, but that is all it is, a philosophy. An extremely powerful one, but when faced with an assault rifle, all rights turn out to be figments of our collective human imagination.

The *only* reason those of us who have free speech do so is because we collectively decide that this right is important, and we hire people with guns to make sure it is protected.

Re:Actually...

[Aceticon]

One could make the case that the notion of property for physical things is natural - "I have aquired/received it therefore it's mine". How many times have you heard small kids fight about something and one of them says "It's mine, it's mine".

From the notion of property (aka ownership) in the physical realm to the notion of property rights (aka being entitled to control what is done with one's things and choosing if/when/how to part with them) is a natural evolution: it's simply a mechanism to avoid conflict in a group - any societies where individual-ownership was not coupled with some form of property-rights planted the seeds of their own downfall by weakening themselves due to internal conflict and were destroyed. It helps that physical ownership is usually easilly tracked (it's either something movable in the possession of somebody, locked or something wholy immovable whose ownership status is kept in a centralized place) and thus it's easy to avoid ownership conflicts.

Intellectual property on the other hand is an unnatural construct - it is not natural to refrain oneself of re-telling something one heard in an open context. Stories and jokes are naturally told and retold and yet, intellectual property says that the inventor of the story/joke "owns it" and can decide if somebody else can tell it, no mater how many degrees of separation there are between them: this does not slot in naturally with human social behaviour. Unlike physical ownership, ownership of ideas is incredibly hard to keep track of, both because they are self-reproducing and because there in an unlimited supply of new ones.

Intellectual property does not prevent conflict by moderating natural impulses - instead it creates new conflicts by extending ownership to an size-unlimited space. It does not increase efficiency in human societies (as physical property rights do by avoiding resources being wasted in ownership conflicts), but instead it decreases efficiency by imposing on all a duty to keep track of the ownership of all ideas.

Even for it's stated aims (the promotion of ideas), Intellectual Property has not in fact been proven to work: the percieved "growth in ideas" since the 19th century can just as easilly have come from an increase in numbers for manking (the world population has increase almost 7-fold since 1800), an increase in the spread of ideas due to mass-media (newspapers, radio, TV) and an increase in "keeping-count" of ideas which is a product of Intellectual Property laws (nobody counted "innovations" before patents where created). In fact, during their strongest growth periods most societies openly ignored Intellectual Property while Intellectual Ownership concerns seem to increase in periods of stagnation.

Wrong

[dracocat]

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.

Re:Wrong

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

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.

Re:Wrong

[cosm]

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?]

Re:Wrong

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Sure, the FBI isn't officially prioritizing copyrights over missing persons.

However, the fact that they're increasing allocation to copyright means it obviously holds more importance. If it didn't, those same funds could be put to use elsewhere on what normal people would consider to be more important cases.

Re:Wrong

[ratboy666]

Reading the article and some of the fine links (note that quotes are marked, but not attributed) -- to quote one (on identify theft):

"Identity theft is on the rise nationwide, yet in a report released Tuesday, federal investigators lament that the Department of Justice's (DOJ) efforts to combat such crimes have to some degree "faded as priorities."

According to the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General (IG), many of the suggestions pitched in 2006 by then-President George W. Bush's task force on identity theft have yet to be implemented fully. As of March, the agency had not even appointed an official to oversee those efforts, according to the report.

Moreover, changes in how the FBI handles related investigations have resulted in an atmosphere in which "the specific crime of identity theft is not an FBI priority," investigators said."

Now, Copyright violation is a civil matter, and identify theft is a crime:

"Well, isn't this just great. Just a little while back, the Justice Department announced that fighting "intellectual property crime" was a major priority. At the time, we wondered if there weren't more important things for the DOJ to be working on. The answer is yes, of course, but the Justice Department has apparently decided to push them off the priority list. A new report on identity fraud notes that it has "faded" as a priority for the DOJ and the FBI. Ah, right, the stuff that actually harms individuals directly and isn't a civil or business model issue? Why focus on that when you can prop up your friends in Hollywood?"

And, yes, the FBI has a horrible backlog (2 years, according to the OIG, if no new cases come in). So, why is the FBI investing in a private police force (for civil matters)? This is a new mission:

"Attorney General Eric Holder Friday announced the creation of a Justice Department intellectual property task force to better tackle domestic and international piracy and other IP crimes. "The rise in intellectual property crime in the United States and abroad threatens not only our public safety but also our economic well being," Holder said in a statement. "This Task Force will allow us to identify and implement a multi-faceted strategy with our federal, state and international partners to effectively combat this type of crime."

Is this not the very definition of prioritization? Yes, I would say that Copyright has been prioritized over missing persons. There was no need to create a Copyright private police force, and an acknowledged need to bolster DNA analysis.

Re:Wrong

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd consider that work on copyright cases is probably easier to bolster since any reasonably competent FBI agent should be able to handle something like that. I'd think that the backlog of DNA cases would take considerably more expertise, more effort, and greater expense to significantly increase the throughput of cases.

Re:Wrong

[J Story]

Change we can Believe in? People might say that this FBI reprioritization is only to be expected and would happen no matter which party was in charge. That may well be, but if so it finally puts to rest the hope that things would be any different for this current administration.

Re:Wrong

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:Wrong

[Totenglocke]

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.

CONCLUSION

By increasing manpower assigned to copyright and NOT increasing the manpower assigned to running the DNA labs / increasing the amount of equipment needed to run the tests, the FBI IS prioritizing copyright above missing persons.

You had the facts correct - you just failed to make the obvious conclusion.

Re:Frist post?????

[Nadaka]

Unlimited oversight by the people.

Re:Why federal involvement

[mrnobo1024]

Copyrights and patents are one of the things the Constitution actually allows Congress to make laws regarding:

Article I, section 8: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"

The "limited time" part has been completely forgotten in the case of copyright, though.

Re:so that bigger then going after rapist in DNA l

[Grishnakh]

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)

Re:so that bigger then going after rapist in DNA l

[Grishnakh]

Dammit, I enclosed my (/sarcasm) tag in brackets and it disappeared.

And now, stupid Slashdot is telling me I'm posting comments too quickly.

If you are a missing person please press 1 now...

[BlackSabbath]

At the FBI, we take customer service seriously.

Missing persons who wish to file a customer service complaint can contact us via telephone, email or postal address:
http://www.fbi.gov/contactus.htm

We value your feedback. Have a nice day.

False Dichotomy

[Skexis]

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.

Question about original sources

[electricprof]

I've looked at the Wired article and the Techdirt articles, and I'm pretty sure I can track down original sources in what might be called the "major media" that discuss the downgrading if emphasis on missing persons. Similarly, I can track down sources discussing the creation of a new task force on IP. What I'm looking for is a major media source that talks about the relative prioritization of these two. Did I miss that in the articles? Does somebody know of one?

If a little blonde girl goes missing

[Black Parrot]

they'll be all over it. And you won't hear anything else on the news for a month.

But the farther you are from "little blonde girl", the less you matter.

Re:so that bigger then going after rapist in DNA l

[socsoc]

what an asshole

Value of a person

[stimpleton]

The monetary value of a person is known.

I live in New Zealand. Emergency services here run helicoptors. Not just for the old cliche of plucking people of a cliff face, but also for car accidents and medical emergencies in non-urban areas. To provide perspective, a seriously injured person, just 20 minutes from a city may recieve helicoptor service for severe cases.

What defines severe? Is it worth it to the taxpayer?

About 12 years ago, a study was done to put a monetary cost to a citizen loosing their life. Presumably this factored loss of taxable income, consequences of earning potential of spouses, impact and costs to assist a dependant child.

It was in the news even, and it ignited a moral debate. That cost to society was NZ$1,100,000.

The point being, the cost of the helicoptor recovery was less than this, at about $5000 per hour.

We can perhaps conclue the FBI has done some similar sums, but the poor individual has not fared so well in the cost/benefit analysis. Or someone high up has an interest in a copyright litigation practice.

Re:Value of a person

[dissy]

Yahoo already taught us that one illegal download is equal in value to three and one third dead family members...

http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/6486/valuemusicvslife.jpg

Re:Getting found is as easy as torrenttorrenttorre

[hellwig]

Just hope your kidnappers use a copyrighted font in the ransom note that they didn't properly license. That should get the FBI on your case.

self-citing on techdirt?

[blueworm]

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.

I tried...missing people

[AnAdventurer]

I tried to start a non-profit to find missing people. I got C&D letters from 4 states for my website as I sought start-up, even with clearly stating I did not have 503x status. Missing people is not good business. I was surprised I did not get a note from the FBI.

Think of the children...

[tverbeek]

Think of the children... of the music and movie executives and shareholders! Without police enforcement of their right to inherit royalties, they might have to get jobs when they grow up!

Re:You get what you vote for

[Anonymous Coward]

All of this was brushed away because defeating McCain was all that mattered.

As if we wouldn't get other outrages if McCain was in power.

Personally, it was a close call for me to vote, but when Sarah Palin got thrown in as the VP candidate that struck the death knell for my voting for McCain. If he'd taken someone more, I dunno, not Palin, I would've been agonizing my way to the polls, but playing for down-to-earth don'tchaknow whimsy just pushed me to Obama.

I *like* McCain. He had some good ideas as did Obama. But McCain + Palin was far worse to me than Obama + Biden. Now, a McCain/Obama or Obama/McCain ticket, I just might have been able to get behind.

Also, I think GW is probably a pretty cool guy to be friends with, but not someone I wanted as president. To hang out with he seems fun, interesting, and outgoing. To be president, eh. Really was more VP material.

Re:so that bigger then going after rapist in DNA l

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure this wasn't the result of Obama. Unless you can cite some evidence to suggest that it was Obama that reduced funding for this kind of thing then you should shut the fuck up.

Just because he's a black democrat doesn't mean that every bad thing that happens is his fault. I know it's hard for you to understand.

Uh...

[msauve]

Typefaces can't be copyrighted. Code which draw them algorithmically, yes, but not fonts [sic]. They are specifically excluded from copyright (in the US).

37 CFR 202.1:

Material not subject to copyright.

The following are examples of works not subject to copyright and applications for registration of such works cannot be entertained:
...
(e) Typeface as typeface.

News flash:

[fahrbot-bot]

Corporate citizens more important than actual citizens.
Impounded bootleg film at 11.

Federalism 101

[westlake]

The FBI exists to protect profits. In fact the government exists to protect commerce, the very basis of our society

In the American federal system, tracking down missing persons is traditionally a local and state responsibility, prosecuting economic and property crimes that have a national and constitutiobal dimension a federal responsibility.

The FBI has 60 active Kidnapping and Missing Persons Investigations

This may give a clearer idea of how small the FBI role in such cases really is.

Re:Federalism 101

[Anonymous Coward]

okay, then please explain why when I contacted the FBI in regards to a violation of federal law, they hemmed and hawed about actually doing something about it. The only thing I could see that stood in their way was the fact that it was a company that had given money to US congressmen and would have taken a little effort on their part.
I shit you not. Not in the least. It involved the transfer of technology to a foreign country in direct violation of a number of federal laws. There was an email that an officer of the company wrote clearly implicated himself and the company and had CC'ed the CEO.
On another occasion, ( I don't know whether he was drunk or what, but I was there) the CEO said that he was assisting in the transfer of technology from a company in the US to one outside the US so that they could compete and do business with us. Basically so we could do business with both companies. So far I haven't seen any business from the second company. But there were inquiries into how the technology got out of the US, (but not from any government organization).
But after working for a number of years in advanced technology, their appears to be very little interest/effort in securing advanced technology. Maybe because it is too complicated and difficult to prosecute.
But I have grown very cynical of large numbers of people being held as terrorist, while I see military technology being handed over to a foreign countries.
But I will say that the only ounce of prevention came when a large military contractor came to do business with us. They had brought some of their higher ups (Product/Divisin VP's) for a meeting/audit to discuss business. At the end of the meeting they said our connections will be a problem for us to do business with you. That's the last we heard of them.
So I really think that copyright infringement should be one of the last things on their plate. But that's just me.

Re:so that bigger then going after rapist in DNA l

[westlake]

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.

Simple

[PPH]

Missing people don't contribute to re-election campaigns.

So Who Pays the FBI

[b4upoo]

Obviously commercial forces join together And continually let the FBI know who contributes big bucks to officials. Justice is for sale in more ways than one.

Re:so that bigger then going after rapist in DNA l

[JWSmythe]

    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.

Capitalism again.

[unity100]

It is inevitable for government and government agencies in capitalist systems to eventually give priority to 'preferred' citizens ; corporations. Profits over people. The irony is that, in capitalist systems, those preferred citizens always pay less and less taxes increasingly.

Re:so that bigger then going after rapist in DNA l

[Talderas]

And remember to hit preview.

How can I forgot to hit preview? It's required before you can post the comment.