[extropy-chat] US Justice Dept. wants new antipiracy powers

Samantha Atkins sjatkins at gmail.com
Sat Oct 16 07:01:38 UTC 2004


It seems obvious that little of these extra-Constitutional powers is
remotely about drugs, terrorism, or "piracy".   It is about power to
monitor and control every aspect of citizen's lives.  IMHO, it is
about fear, deep fear of a future that doesn't look like what existing
powers are used to.   It is a fight against change itself.    The real
and/or trumped up "evil" used for justification is not terribly
relevant  to the shape of the "cure".

- samantha


On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 07:13:16 +0200, Amara Graps <amara.graps at gmail.com> wrote:
> >From boing-boing  (http://www.boingboing.net/) :
> 
> "At a press conference in Los Angeles today, Atttorney General John
> Ashcroft announced an expansion of Department of Justice powers to
> combat intellectual property theft. Some say the approach appears to be
> modeled after the war on drugs."
> 
> and then to the source:
> 
> http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5406654.html
> 
> Justice Dept. wants new antipiracy powers
> By Declan McCullagh CNET News.com October 12, 2004, 4:42 PM PT
> 
>   The U.S. Justice Department recommended a sweeping transformation of the
> nation's intellectual-property laws, saying peer-to-peer piracy is a
> "widespread" problem that can be addressed only through more spending,
> more FBI agents and more power for prosecutors.
> 
> In an extensive report released Tuesday, senior department officials
> endorsed a pair of controversial copyright bills strongly favored by the
> entertainment industry that would criminalize "passive sharing" on
> file-swapping networks and permit lawsuits against companies that sell
> products that "induce" copyright infringement.
> 
> "The department is prepared to build the strongest, most aggressive
> legal assault against intellectual-property crime in our nation's
> history," Attorney General John Ashcroft, who created the task force in
> March, said at a press conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon.
> 
> In an example of the Justice Department's hunger for new
> copyright-related police powers, the report asks Congress to introduce
> legislation that would permit wiretaps to be used in investigating
> serious intellectual-property offenses and that would create a new crime
> of the "importation" of pirated products. It also suggests stationing
> FBI agents and prosecutors in Hong Kong and Budapest, Hungary, to aid
> local officials and "develop training programs on intellectual-property
> enforcement."
> 
> [see article for more]
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