So, it would seem that terrorists are also infringing on our copyrights.
A quick synopsis: A lieutenant in the Los Angeles (imagine that!) County Sheriff’s Department and head of it’s IP (intellectual property) team, by the name of John Stedman , stated in front of the Senate Homeland Security committee that during some raids he saw various markings of terrorists (flags, etc.). Read the story for more details, I’m not gonna regurgitate it for you :P.
I will, of course, state my opinion. That is, after all, what I do here ;)
Let’s look at the pieces. Terrorist is todays word for getting attention. It’s reminiscent of what “Communist” was back during the McCarthy days. If you want to get attention and sympathy, attach terrorism to it (they did it with drugs for a bit after 9/11 – “you buy drugs, you support terrorists”). So that’s the first piece we have here, that linking something to terrorist is bound to not only gain sympathy but to gain the attention of the entire country (and, in this case, those who make the laws).
Now let’s put that aside, and look at another piece. Copyright is a big issue right now, the RIAA and MPAA are running around like money-grubbing crack addicts trying to get their next fix (fix being finding someone else to sue). Don’t you love similes? So we have that, we know they want more power so that they can more easily sue your little sister (I know, evil tactic, getting sympathy by using emotions for your family members) because the wanted the latest Britney Spears song (who doesn’t deserve the money anyways). At one point they wanted the right to do what is called a Denial of Service attack (basically kicking you off the network) on anyones system which they found swapping copyright files – that, thankfully, never got passed. Note that DoS’s (as they’re called) are illegal. They also want your internet service provider to give them your personal information if they think you’re violating copyright law. This, of course, is a job for some law enforcement agency, but nevermind that. It’s certainly OK to allow an organization to police our society. But I digress, back to the matter at hand.
Next portion of this puzzle: the MPAA, one of the organizations (along with the RIAA) trying to get people for copyright infringement, has it’s headquarters in LA. Wait…LA? Los Angeles? I’m smelling some bad cheese here. Let’s review.
A lieutenant in the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, which just happens to be the same county (and city) that the MPAA is based in, has apparently found a connection between terrorists (bad people, no good!) and copyright infringement. Now, I’m not some crazy conspiracy theorist, but we have dots all lined up making a nice big picture. We can’t be sure that these dots are really connected, but they certainly appear that way.
If the senate (and subsequently congress) gets the feeling that terrorists are involved in copyright infringement, they are more likely to pass harsher laws. Laws which they may not otherwise pass – we’ve seen how terrorism effects them, look at the Patriot Act. This looks to me like a fairly well played out, nasty PR move by the MPAA and it’s partner-in-crime the RIAA. You can form your own opinion, of course. But what other reason is there for him to mention that some of the copyright infringers he raided may also be involved in terrorism? There is no reason, it’s irrelevant information. And, as the article states, it’s also completely circumstantial.
For that matter, how is copyright infringement a matter for Homeland Security? I don’t quite understand that. Who’s security are we protecting by suing our citizens for insanely large sums of money? Certainly not the security of our citizens. Perhaps our judges should take a que from France (oh no, how dare I say France is doing something good, I must be unpratiotic!) and stop this nonsense. The government should protect it’s citizens, not big business.
