I have actually just completed a letter to the chairman of the congressional subcommittee the testimony was delivered to touching on much this very issue, as well as others.
If anyone wants to write to Congressman Sensenbrenner (the chairman of said comittee) the email address is Judiciary@mail.house.gov
Below is the text of my letter to Chairman Sensenbrenner for those interested. Niceities and personal data have been omitted to save space.
The issues I would like to address are specifically
Piracy and Intellectual Property as it relates to
international crime and terrorism, Peer-to-Peer
networks and file sharing, and what both mean in the
larger scheme of societal evolution. I will attempt to
be as brief as possible, for I know your time is
valuable, but I will be happy to provide further
information should it be desired.
It is apparent to me, through my investigation and
observation of larger patterns, that International
Terrorism is far more likely to derive the significant
majority of its funds from 1) contributions of wealthy
individuals and groups who support similar aims to the
terrorist organizations, and 2) the international drug
trade. Compared to the vast sums generated in illicit
narcotics traffic and global fundraising efforts by
multinational support organizations or wealthy
benefactors, the amount of revinue that could possibly
be brought to terrorist organizations through the
pirate distribution of the latest version of Microsoft
Office or a cracked dvd copy of "Titanic" to an
impoverished population in Russia or Asia is miniscule
at best.
To begin with, anyone with an internet connection and
the time to search can generally find either of these
products available for the cost of the phone call and
internect connection.
Secondly, counterfeiters, (ie, those criminal groups
who download such copies and then redistribute them in
packaging on a cd) are only able to make profit
because they sell such copies at a drastically lower
price than the software or movie companies themselves.
And such criminal organizations ALWAYS take their cut,
being much more concerned with profit than any
terrorist "cause". Money is always the motivator.
The statistics you have likely been given as to dollar
amounts related to piracy are most likely based on
retail sales figures, a completely misleading
statistic to the actual circumstances of pirate trade.
Any carry-through to fund terrorism is at most,
minimal, and at least, nonexistant.
Secondly, I must comment on the existance and
profitability of such black markets, as the historical
conditions for these phenomenon affect the issue in a
material fashion.
Black markets exist under two conditions economically.
The first is that a product exists which their is
significant demand for, but it has been prohibited by
law. Narcotics are the best current example of this
condition. The second is that a product exists which
their is significant demand for, but is financially or
otherwise unobtainable through normal legal channels
in the particular region, but still legally available.
Most bootleg traffic of software and movies occurrs
for this reason.
Black markets exist as societal and economic
evolutions to route around obstructions in the free
flow of goods and services. During Prohibition, the
populace still demanded alcohol, so there was a great
market demand. Organized crime rose to fill that gap,
and profited immensely. At present, much of the retail
price of most movies and software, even if they happen
to be available in many affected parts of the world,
is beyond the grasp of the financially hindered
inhabitants of the region, yet still desired. This
produces a black market trade in much the same
fashion.
It has been historically and sociologically proven
that criminalizing a product creates a significant
increase in organized crime revinues. The american
Mafia was enriched and empowered initially through the
prohibition of alcohol, and likewise the drug gangs,
ma
Understanding how people can support this is a very simple matter, once one realizes what the American political system is really about, and how it really works.
The first part of it is understanding that there is no real difference between the two major political parties, just the flavor of the lip service they give the populace. The reason WHY this is lies in the second part.
The second part is that political parties care about only ONE thing. POWER. They are a de facto "ruling elite" in the United States. The two-party system is such that carefully woven agreements and arrangements are institutionalized between long-serving members of our legislative bodies. The power structure does not change simply because a certain set of politicians are voted in or out of office. It is the party machinery that defines the power structure. It is this same party machinery that determines what "issues" are going to be paid lip service in platforms, and the whole mechanism is designed around "who can get the ignorant and reactionary populace to swallow the bigger lie this time around?".
Neither party has ANY interest in fixing problems, unless those problems are such that they could disturb the power sharing of their ruling elite. Examples are there aplenty in history about methods which solve a great many of the problems facing American society today, yet no method that might actually CHANGE anything is ever really implemented, or attempted. Change disrupts the power structure.
Once you understand that politicians are interested in preserving their own power only, and as such, are completely reactionary to the media and opinion polls, then its easy to see why they would vote in the Patriot Act.
1) it consolidates more power in the hands of the ruling elite.
2) it makes them LOOK like they're doing something about a major problem at a casual glance. (and a casual glance is ALL the scrutiny the majority of the public ever gives them in this soundbyte society)
3) it helps them individually avoid the risks of having to think or propose real ideas or solutions, when they can simply act in a knee-jerk fashion and not be criticized for doing nothing.
Traitors? Aye.. every last rotten one of them.. But nothing will ever be done.. The govt hates to own up to its own mistakes.
Eww... I just noticed something.. "Letter to Josiah Quincy, SEPT. 11, 1773"..
Do we see a bit of a pattern here with the date? Funny how such an applicable quote was made upon the same day as the trigger event for our having reason to quote it...
Just because the chains are comfortable, or stylish, doesn't mean one is any less a slave. Sure, one could make the arguement that Estonian Communism wasn't REAL communism because it wasn't as completely f'ed up as say, Stalinist Russia, with the purges and all... I mean, nowhere NEARLY as many people were outright MURDERED...
The point is, either we are free, or we aren't. To claim FREEDOM when one is completely surrounded by arbitrary limitations on rights and actions imposed by an oligarchy, representative or not, is just plain silly. We are a state, we are policed. We keep more of our own citizens in jail than any other western nation. We have more police per capita than any other western nation. And our police forces are well armed enough that one can consider them an "occupying army" via UN definitions and the Geneva convention.
Sorry, to be aware of what's going on, and to call a spade a spade isn't hyperbole just because that spade isn't "spadish" enough for someone else.
Heh, no deliberate slam against the SUV... I just picked it as one of many examples of the "trendy." A dot of color on the painting of American complacency, if you will.
One could make the example of an overpriced luxury car, or any other "status symbol" item that the mindless masses are so obsessed with.
Problem is, it's not just W.
Since its inception, the NSA has been charged with monitoring every radio signal, phone call, and data packet that crosses the border of the USA. That's what they do. At last I heard of it, they had an acre of Cray mainframes in an underground bunker in Maryland to do it with. Not to mention the massive communications monitoring programs set in place with some of our NATO allies.. It's well documented that the US intelligence agencies can listen in to just about ANY radio traffic anywhere in the world, not to mention what they can do, and HAVE been doing, to the world's datastreams.
The interesting thing about laws like the Patriot Act are little bits like authorizing a giant database on people... books that are checked out of libraries, what websites they visit, etc. The FBI has been keeping "unofficial" lists of checkouts of certain flagged titles from libraries since the 1950's.. and you *know* that can't be the extent of it. What I think is really going on in these new laws is that the government is finally taking covert programs that have been going on for YEARS, if not decades, and "legitimatizing" them.
The erosion of our rights is a completely bipartisan effort. The Right seeks to do it by facist control in the name of "national security". The Left seeks to do it by saying "Here, let US make the decisions so you don't have to." It's a process that has been in full swing for at LEAST the last 50 years.
If you want a wonderously scathing criticism of western society, pick up a copy of "One Dimensional Man" by Herbert Marcuse. It's a brilliant bit of thought, and even though written in the 60's, it's magnificently applicable today, and even more so in many ways.
America has been a "police state" for the last several decades... Everything our society does is regulated, the Feds have power that would be abhorrent to the framers of the constitution... They've been doing it for years covertly, in small ways... the real truth of the matter is that the US public doesn't know, and for the most part, doesn't WANT to know, just what the government routinely gets away with. As long as they can shop at the Gap, drive their SUV's, chat on their cellphones, Check their email at AOL, and watch the latest network tv drivel, they're happy.
Now at least the govt is being OPEN about its facist tendencies.. which makes it easier to resist, if anyone is left who has the heart. Ben Franklin said it best, I think... something to the effect of "Anyone who would trade freedom for security deserves neither."... And history will show, gets neither as well.
And its not really just any one single incidence of a bug exploit or code vulnerability that is the problem.. It's an immense PATTERN of errors.. many of which amount to wide and gaping holes in the security of a system, and many of which simply cause software to perform poorly.
I'm no programmer.. in fact, I'm just a hardware geek trying to break into the IT field and not succeeding very well at it, but I can think of half a dozen times in the last couple years where some major M$ security flaw has been caused by an unchecked buffer....
Now, I MAY be in error here... but they loosely covered buffers in my Intro to Comp Sci. course in college... and they repeatedly went off on making sure to close them up and the like... (I majored in Religion, so my coding vernacular is likely not up to snuff, please forgive.)
Considering the thousands of such vulnerabilities that have been reported over the years (I mean, this is a fairly common screwup..), would it not be safe to assume that a company with ANY sense that its products might need to be secure, and that actually tests its products properly and does adequate QC, would at the very least go through and check the code for such an obvious source of problems? It's not like M$ lacks the manpower, or money.
I've not yet gotten edjumacated properly and switched to Linux, BSD, or some other Open Source OS.. but what this weakness on my part has allowed is an extensive history of playing with M$... and it's my opinion that they just don't test their software properly before releasing it. They've released buggy pieces of crap for YEARS that are unstable as heck, and its often not until the second or third service pack release that the software actually becomes somewhat reliable (if at all)..
That's M$'s shell game.. Release buggy and insecure software, blame everyone else, and at the same time keep users scrambling to buy the newest releases in a vain hope that M$ might actually have a working solution for them. All the while M$ rakes in the dough. They can do it because they are a virtual monopoly with all that comes with it.
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If anyone wants to write to Congressman Sensenbrenner (the chairman of said comittee) the email address is Judiciary@mail.house.gov
Below is the text of my letter to Chairman Sensenbrenner for those interested. Niceities and personal data have been omitted to save space.
Understanding how people can support this is a very simple matter, once one realizes what the American political system is really about, and how it really works.
The first part of it is understanding that there is no real difference between the two major political parties, just the flavor of the lip service they give the populace. The reason WHY this is lies in the second part.
The second part is that political parties care about only ONE thing. POWER. They are a de facto "ruling elite" in the United States. The two-party system is such that carefully woven agreements and arrangements are institutionalized between long-serving members of our legislative bodies. The power structure does not change simply because a certain set of politicians are voted in or out of office. It is the party machinery that defines the power structure. It is this same party machinery that determines what "issues" are going to be paid lip service in platforms, and the whole mechanism is designed around "who can get the ignorant and reactionary populace to swallow the bigger lie this time around?".
Neither party has ANY interest in fixing problems, unless those problems are such that they could disturb the power sharing of their ruling elite. Examples are there aplenty in history about methods which solve a great many of the problems facing American society today, yet no method that might actually CHANGE anything is ever really implemented, or attempted. Change disrupts the power structure.
Once you understand that politicians are interested in preserving their own power only, and as such, are completely reactionary to the media and opinion polls, then its easy to see why they would vote in the Patriot Act.
1) it consolidates more power in the hands of the ruling elite.
2) it makes them LOOK like they're doing something about a major problem at a casual glance. (and a casual glance is ALL the scrutiny the majority of the public ever gives them in this soundbyte society)
3) it helps them individually avoid the risks of having to think or propose real ideas or solutions, when they can simply act in a knee-jerk fashion and not be criticized for doing nothing.
Traitors? Aye.. every last rotten one of them..
But nothing will ever be done.. The govt hates to own up to its own mistakes.
Ahh yes. that's the quote!
Eww... I just noticed something.. "Letter to Josiah Quincy, SEPT. 11, 1773"..
Do we see a bit of a pattern here with the date?
Funny how such an applicable quote was made upon the same day as the trigger event for our having reason to quote it...
Is the universe trying to tell us something?
Just because the chains are comfortable, or stylish, doesn't mean one is any less a slave. Sure, one could make the arguement that Estonian Communism wasn't REAL communism because it wasn't as completely f'ed up as say, Stalinist Russia, with the purges and all... I mean, nowhere NEARLY as many people were outright MURDERED...
The point is, either we are free, or we aren't. To claim FREEDOM when one is completely surrounded by arbitrary limitations on rights and actions imposed by an oligarchy, representative or not, is just plain silly. We are a state, we are policed. We keep more of our own citizens in jail than any other western nation. We have more police per capita than any other western nation. And our police forces are well armed enough that one can consider them an "occupying army" via UN definitions and the Geneva convention.
Sorry, to be aware of what's going on, and to call a spade a spade isn't hyperbole just because that spade isn't "spadish" enough for someone else.
Heh, no deliberate slam against the SUV... I just picked it as one of many examples of the "trendy." A dot of color on the painting of American complacency, if you will. One could make the example of an overpriced luxury car, or any other "status symbol" item that the mindless masses are so obsessed with.
Problem is, it's not just W. Since its inception, the NSA has been charged with monitoring every radio signal, phone call, and data packet that crosses the border of the USA. That's what they do. At last I heard of it, they had an acre of Cray mainframes in an underground bunker in Maryland to do it with. Not to mention the massive communications monitoring programs set in place with some of our NATO allies.. It's well documented that the US intelligence agencies can listen in to just about ANY radio traffic anywhere in the world, not to mention what they can do, and HAVE been doing, to the world's datastreams. The interesting thing about laws like the Patriot Act are little bits like authorizing a giant database on people... books that are checked out of libraries, what websites they visit, etc. The FBI has been keeping "unofficial" lists of checkouts of certain flagged titles from libraries since the 1950's.. and you *know* that can't be the extent of it. What I think is really going on in these new laws is that the government is finally taking covert programs that have been going on for YEARS, if not decades, and "legitimatizing" them. The erosion of our rights is a completely bipartisan effort. The Right seeks to do it by facist control in the name of "national security". The Left seeks to do it by saying "Here, let US make the decisions so you don't have to." It's a process that has been in full swing for at LEAST the last 50 years. If you want a wonderously scathing criticism of western society, pick up a copy of "One Dimensional Man" by Herbert Marcuse. It's a brilliant bit of thought, and even though written in the 60's, it's magnificently applicable today, and even more so in many ways.
America has been a "police state" for the last several decades... Everything our society does is regulated, the Feds have power that would be abhorrent to the framers of the constitution... They've been doing it for years covertly, in small ways... the real truth of the matter is that the US public doesn't know, and for the most part, doesn't WANT to know, just what the government routinely gets away with. As long as they can shop at the Gap, drive their SUV's, chat on their cellphones, Check their email at AOL, and watch the latest network tv drivel, they're happy.
Now at least the govt is being OPEN about its facist tendencies.. which makes it easier to resist, if anyone is left who has the heart. Ben Franklin said it best, I think... something to the effect of "Anyone who would trade freedom for security deserves neither."... And history will show, gets neither as well.
Oh, how Babylon the mighty has fallen.
And its not really just any one single incidence of a bug exploit or code vulnerability that is the problem.. It's an immense PATTERN of errors.. many of which amount to wide and gaping holes in the security of a system, and many of which simply cause software to perform poorly.
I'm no programmer.. in fact, I'm just a hardware geek trying to break into the IT field and not succeeding very well at it, but I can think of half a dozen times in the last couple years where some major M$ security flaw has been caused by an unchecked buffer....
Now, I MAY be in error here... but they loosely covered buffers in my Intro to Comp Sci. course in college... and they repeatedly went off on making sure to close them up and the like... (I majored in Religion, so my coding vernacular is likely not up to snuff, please forgive.)
Considering the thousands of such vulnerabilities that have been reported over the years (I mean, this is a fairly common screwup..), would it not be safe to assume that a company with ANY sense that its products might need to be secure, and that actually tests its products properly and does adequate QC, would at the very least go through and check the code for such an obvious source of problems? It's not like M$ lacks the manpower, or money.
I've not yet gotten edjumacated properly and switched to Linux, BSD, or some other Open Source OS.. but what this weakness on my part has allowed is an extensive history of playing with M$... and it's my opinion that they just don't test their software properly before releasing it. They've released buggy pieces of crap for YEARS that are unstable as heck, and its often not until the second or third service pack release that the software actually becomes somewhat reliable (if at all)..
That's M$'s shell game.. Release buggy and insecure software, blame everyone else, and at the same time keep users scrambling to buy the newest releases in a vain hope that M$ might actually have a working solution for them. All the while M$ rakes in the dough. They can do it because they are a virtual monopoly with all that comes with it.