Feds Overstate Software Piracy's Link To Terrorism 448
Lucas123 writes "Attorney General Michael Mukasey claims that terrorists sell pirated software as a way to finance their operations, without presenting a shred of evidence for his case. He's doing it to push through a controversial piece of intellectual property legislation that would increase IP penalties, increase police power, set up a new agency to investigate IP theft, and more. 'Criminal syndicates, and in some cases even terrorist groups, view IP crime as a lucrative business, and see it as a low-risk way to fund other activities,' Mukasey told a crowd at the Tech Museum of Innovation last week."
No shame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well duh (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Utter lies (Score:5, Insightful)
It is absolutely despicable that we've become so fat and complacent, that we allow our government to pull these sorts of stunts. Looking at the proposed legislation, one should note that IP infringement might be punished more severely than rape, if these laws are to become real. Actually, we should see the whole thing as a rape... the rape of our Constitution, and every value that made our society ever so slightly better than the regimes we like to fight so much.
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
Did I really just say that? I've been here to long.
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
Like the burning of the Reichstag, 9/11 (yeah, Saddam did it and so did you, for all we know), and a hundred other false flags and set-ups.
"In politics, nothing happens by accident." - Roosevelt
oh, how convenient (Score:5, Insightful)
Smoke locally grown pot (as most pot in the US is): you're supporting the terrorists!
Download your music through a peer to peer network: you're supporting the terrorists!
Pirate your software: you're supporting the terrorists!
It's the red scare [wikipedia.org] all over again, but with a different enemy, isn't it? "Don't forget to go spend all your money on things you don't need and can't afford. If you don't spend more than you make and support our corporate buddies, you clearly want the terrorists to win."
Republican Legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
But I can't, because that would be a lie.
Re:Well duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Its not just republicans, democrats are guilty too. In fact, I would go as far as to say that conservatives (not necessarily republicans) are the lesser of two evils. I don't see the democrats supporting free software any more then republicans. I don't see democrats striking down draconian laws such as the DMCA. Now they have supported some needed things such as the toning-down of the patriot act because 85% of it wasn't needed 6 months after 9/11. The moment some candidate supports true freedom, and not burning the Constitution (That means, true freedom of speech, and also the right to bear arms) So, before you place this blame on the republicans, look at the democrats, they aren't exactly saints either.
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No shame (Score:5, Insightful)
And to answer your question, next the government will claim terrorists are raising funds through an elaborate cheese laundering operation. First stealing US Gov. Cheese, then selling it on the black market at fantastic profit margins. Everyone, please turn in your local Dairy Farmer (he's undoubtedly in on the operation)!
Re:Utter lies (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you think campaign financing reform is drastically needed, but will never happen? When the government puts the needs of corporations before the needs of its citizens, it's already way too late. Hope you have your bug-out package and bribe money to get a coyote to pass you through the border...
Re:Well duh (Score:1, Insightful)
Wait, excuse moi? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tired of all this 'terrorism' rhetoric. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the government really isn't afraid of terrorists, but making sure the citizens are allows them to expand their budgets, clamp down harder on John Q Citizen's movements and basic Constitutionally-recognised freedoms, and allows it to ignore international conventions to the point where the US has already been declared an outlaw nation. Geedubya has already told us the 'War on Terror' will last over a hundred years. That's 100 years of increased taxation, failing economy, and increased repression strictly for the gain of the politicians and their corporate masters. Our money is nearly worthless now, and it's just going to get worse as the government keeps pouring money down the Iraq/Iran/Middle East rathole. Welcome to our wonderful 21st Century, and don't forget to pray.
If they REALLY want to go after terrorists ... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's, what? Hundreds of billions a year in direct theft and extortion of people's and companies' hard-earned cash, plus more multibillions in anti-malware products, damage to data, equipment, and network infrastructure, costs to overbuild the net to handle the bogus traffic, lost revenue due to DDoSing, etc. Not to mention the ongoing construction and debugging of a technology that can be used for even more nefarious purposes - including espionage and sabotage.
Re:Well duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, on the contrary, most other people get their unpaid-for stuff from work, or borrowing CD's off friends, or they just go to the shop and buy it. Yes, they don't use torrents or FTP or other online tools. OTOH I don't need to pirate any software because everything I do has an open-source tool available for it, be it programming, word processing, finances, drawing, music playback, sound recording, 5-minute games, or educating the kids.
And if terrorists are making money from selling pirated software, then the 'terrorists' are zit-covered teenagets at swap-meets, or short, smiling, hungry-looking peddlers at down-town asian markets with their crate of CD's selling obviously incorrectly labelled software that they burnt at home.
But this is redundant because we knew all this well before this thread started.
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
I call bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the current administration is guilty of that crap.
What about the last administration and it's wagging the dog wars in Somalia and Kosovo - where there was NO US interest at all let alone oil interests? When groups [findarticles.com] opposed to the administration suddenly found themselves audited [findarticles.com] by the IRS? Where hundreds of FBI files on political opponents turned up in the White House (can you say Nixon?)
The parent poster was right. The democrats will violate your rights just as quick as the Republicans. They will just feed you a story you can swallow, instead of one the Republicans can swallow.
They're breaking the law! Quick - pass more laws! (Score:3, Insightful)
I've noticed a trend in modern politics that the answer to problems with people breaking the law is to pass more laws. Instead of, you know, trying to enforce the laws we already have. Of course, the new laws never seem to hit their nominal 'target' but instead hit other targets. In this case, isn't *selling* pirated copyrighted materials already a *criminal* offense? I was always understanding that individual, not-for-profit copying was a civil matter, while commercial piracy was a criminal matter. Is that not the case?
More great 'leadership' from our do-nothing government.
The title is rather misleading (Score:1, Insightful)
1. Acknowledges that the problem exists, which it may well not.
2. Furthers the lie, because now all people will begin to believe that there is a connection, and its just a question of how strong the connection is.
And thats the beauty of it (at least from the DOJs side). Despite there being absolutely no factual evidence for this at all, even skeptic sites will only attack the lack of evidence and not the claim itself. Thus, the lie DOES become fact.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Dodgy bloke on the corner? No, he just has shitty DVD's.
That shifty looking geyser at the pub? Nope, All he has are the latest chart singles's and the last few Now! CDs.
My mates cousin nobby? Nah, he can chip my Xbox and sell me pirate games, but no Photoshop here.
I've seen pirated software at computer fairs a long time ago, in the days of dialup, but these days, no chance. The common way for someone who doesn't know where to get it online, is the old CD passed about, you only need 1 nerd to download it, then hte CD can go round dozen of thier mates.
the only pirate stuff I've ever seen actually sold anytime recently are console games sold to chavs with no PC. I've not seen anyone selling a pirate PC game or software since like 1996. Even back in the days of the Amiga, all the pirate stuff we had was copied off mates, either you bought the real one, or you copied a mate's real one, no-one bought a copy, all the dodgy market stalls sold fuzzy-pictured VHS, never computer games or software.
Seriously, do you know any shop, market stall, or random bloke at all who would sell you a pirate copy of photoshop, or any other PC software?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I call bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't even really a left/right thing (well, the right as an actual cultural force, if not as the political expression of conservatism, is closer to the cultural of nationalist values and bellicosity, but..) It's what the Republicans have chosen to exploit for political capital. I attribute it to Rove's neo-conservatism, not to the historical Republican party. But them's still the facts on the ground. (And Rove, Rumsfeld, etc all share origins in the Nixon administration's realignment of the Republican party.)
Terrorists manipulate senators to pass bad laws (Score:3, Insightful)
As a bonus, fixing this would get the background reasoning for senate decisions investigated and put out in the open where it should be.
Vik
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Which Congress passed the law? Which President was burning his political capital for too many other things to risk a fight with Congress by using his veto?
Not that I'm saying he didn't support it, I'm saying you do have to look at who passed the law *first* because the veto is not an option most Presidents just wield willy-nilly. Yes, Bush signed USAPATRIOT, but I mostly blame Congress who passed the law without even reading, much less debating, the fucking thing.
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I call bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Somalia and Kosovo?
Somalia and Kosovo?
After the last seven years, all you have to say is fucking Somalia and Kosovo?
Yeah, all administrations wag the dog.
The Bush administration wagged the whole fucking planet.
Please.
Re:oh, how ironic (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, though the whole reason you got the response is you were replying to a post that only mention MJ -- and MJ has been specifically target as somehow funding terrorism -- with what was essentially a non sequitor about opium.
But since we're on the subject, there's two funny parts about this opium in Afghanistan thing:
1) While they were actively trying to stomp it out while in power, now that they're trying to fund an insurgency, the Taliban is absolutely A-Ok with growing and selling opium.
2) The Northern Alliance et. al., aka the warlords we pretend are the "good guys" in Afghanistan, funded their operations from opium sales both while the Taliban was in power, but especially now that the country is in chaos and they're the "good guys" so there's a lot less pressure to stop.
So actually, if you buy opium, you have at least a 50% chance of supporting our side in Afghanistan. Delicious irony.
Oil (Score:4, Insightful)
In other news Timothy McVeigh sold bumper stickers and so the Feds have launched a task force to crack down on bumper sticker trademark slogan piracy.
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
soft on terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wait, excuse moi? (Score:5, Insightful)
history repeats (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been saying for a while now that it's only a matter of time before the term "criminal" was used interchangeably with "terrorist".
Historically, certain forms of government have successfully employed this trick - you just need a massively stupid population and that's certainly what we've got here. The difference, I guess, is that historically certain unnamed governments have invaded other countries on false pretenses and set out to rule the world...oh, wait...
Re:Well then (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice joke. As with most good jokes you actually present a solution to the accused "problem".
If what he said is true there is a certain way to ensure that the terrorists do not make any money on infringing copyright. And this solution would also ensure that there is never a market for illegal copies of copyrighted works. Piracy (as the music industry is defining it) will destroy the market of the terrorists, and anybody else trying to make money off illegally copying copyright protected works.
The solution is: Non-commercial private copying of copyrighted works has to be free (ie. allowed for anybody). If anybody can freely copy and distribute copyrighted works, terrorists won't have a chance as there is no market for their illegal copies anywhere the internet is available.
Of course a "per copy" sale of digital works would be made impossible, and the music industry would have to find other ways of doing business (or die, as many other industries have done due to technological development). But is it really fair that somebody can make money forever (copyright extension will probably happen again soon) off something they have done only once?
Re:sneak-and-peek (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They're breaking the law! Quick - pass more law (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, I don't like politicians.
Re:I call bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
You really know nothing about the conservative movement you think you are part of.
More laws=More criminals (Score:3, Insightful)
The only benefit of having more laws is that you have more criminals.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a shock (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
So long as politicians can be un-elected by such accusations, the problem will continue.
Maybe we need a new slogan:
Won't anyone think of the Citizens??!
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sneak-and-peek (Score:3, Insightful)
(seriously).
I'm in norcal. bay area.
I don't like the sound of this intimidation game (of theirs).
I'm protesting because I think its a bad precedent to ALLOW these unauthorized phishing expeditions. and if that is enough to get me 'in trouble' then I think we all have a lot to worry about, in the long run.
again, this seems to be a very new thing - the last year or two, only. before that, I think I had a good 10 years or more (in the same place) of undisturbed 'quiet enjoyment' (even though I didn't know that's what I was doing with my time, lol).
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Regime change was the official policy of the Clinton Administration.
And ya might want to read this [cfr.org]. Gore's statements about Iraq in the wake of 9/11. The money shot: "As far as I am concerned, a final reckoning with that government should be on the table".
I do think Gore would have been better at forming a broader coalition. Democrats are better at making back-room deals, knowing how the grease the wheels. It comes from their dedication to the culture of bureaucracy.
The Iraqis have an opportunity to join modern nations with a functioning democracy - they are moving closer to being a modern democracy like Turkey every day. Still a long way away, but clearly a better situation that having Saddam or one of his psychopathic sons in charge, likely for the next half-century.
But I guess all you care about is your own green grass.
Re:He's not overstating the link (Score:3, Insightful)
A more serious matter is paid sperm donors! yes some paid sperm donors are similarly Muslims, some of the Muslims are going to donated the money, some of which will knowingly or unknowingly support Islamic terrorists so obviously we have to outlaw masturbation to protect civilization as we know it.
Real terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
pass the cool-aid and the crack when you're done with it man.
Re:I call bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
True, ALL governments are merely thugs who passed power down to their buddies (Clinton and Bush the elder vacation together, when they're not on TV)... but the peons who uphold said governments seem to think that a whole bunch of FALLIBLE MORTALS can rule over a bunch of FALLIBLE MORTALS who seemingly are more fallible and cannot be trusted to run their own lives.
You people amuse me beyond any measure. All who clamor government is necessary seem to think that governments provide justice, peace, honesty or some other measure of virtue. They must've missed the courts that rarely side with the truth, courts that rule against their own laws (even that so called "law of the land") courts that require you to have massive cash flow to even keep up with the case, nevermind actually win... am I missing anything?
And you all PAY for this, vote for this, and have even come under the impression that these thugs have your best interests in mind.
Wow. Just... wow.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Try again, I'm afraid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I call bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
You speak as if you're above us all. You talk like the elite claim to disdain.
Sanctimonious prick.
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
And ya might want to read this. Gore's statements about Iraq in the wake of 9/11. The money shot: "As far as I am concerned, a final reckoning with that government should be on the table".
Oh please. And stopping genocide in Darfur, and wherever it occurs, is the official policy of the U.N. There's a big difference between an official policy of "regime change" and devoting a huge portion of your military to invading. Bush has said the nuclear option is "on the table for" Iran. Is he doing it any time soon? Some money shot, there's no action.
The only people who were seriously talking about invading Iraq were the high-up neocons, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney. Everyone else in the government apparatus had no reason to invade. Those guys though were talking about invading immediately after 9/11, as if it was the only pretense they needed. Before 9/11, even the Bush administration was giving speeches about how harmless and contained Iraq was. And don't tell me that the intelligence changed, or that other countries agreed they were a threat, because all the key intel to support the war was from before 2001, and the only intel the other countries had to judge was what we showed them, which was only the stuff that sounded good and not what made it sound sketchy. Ask Colin Powell.
If Gore was president, we would almost certainly be in Afghanistan, but it would never have even occurred to him to randomly change course to fight a secular dictator who was a counterbalance to a certain Islamic Republic in the area you may have heard of and/or wanted to invade, at the expense of our operation to eliminate the ones responsible for 9/11. Who was going to suggest it to him? George Tenet? Richard Clark? Assume nobody from PNAC counts, whose was going to push for Iraq II?
But as soon Bush started talking about "Axis of Evil", I knew exactly who they were going to invade. Or more like who not -- the ones that were actually dangerous.
The Iraqis have an opportunity to join modern nations with a functioning democracy - they are moving closer to being a modern democracy like Turkey every day. Still a long way away, but clearly a better situation that having Saddam or one of his psychopathic sons in charge, likely for the next half-century.
But I guess all you care about is your own green grass.
What grass do you care about, huh? Have you even been paying attention to this grass? I don't know if you keep up on current events, but two of Iraq's political parties were just at war with each other. They describe a normal day in the city of Basra, after the cease fire was called, as being only sporadic automatic weapons and rocket fire. All these political parties? They're religiously motivated and armed militias. In many of the militia-dominated sections of the country -- which by the way, includes both entire cities and suburbs of Baghdad which by themselves include millions of people, and only exist because the government backed by our troops is not strong enough to assert itself there. In the milita-dominated sections of the country, many of them are enforcing Islamic law, female dress codes. In any case many civilians are dying in the conflicts. You think this is somehow going to magically turn into a nice stable secular democracy like Turkey? Well this "opportunity" you're so happy to give them has yet to appear.
We gave that same opportunity to the people of Afghanistan, and it has yet to appear there either, and it's been two years longer. Shouldn't we have at least waited until after we proved we could deliver this opportunity before we tried to repeat the process? But no, because we decided to get involved in an even bigger project, Afghanistan was neglected and the Taliban allowed to regroup. Allowed to retake territory, which we have to fight to retake, and they are able to retake again the next year. With, still, the civilians caught
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Not so cut and dried as that. The economy is in pretty bad shape and in order to prevent a major depression in the US and potentially the world, all the politicians are aware that they have to ensure that the economy has some positive momentum not only for their re-election but for the country as a whole.
This started long before the House Market fell apart. This started back when China opened it's doors for economic growth. All the transferable bottom income jobs moved out of the US, leaving us with skilled labor, hi-tech, business management, and hair dressers (you can't out-source a haircut just yet.). But we as a nation failed to recognize that most people who is somewhere south of $50,000 a year is in jeopardy of permanently loosing there job same as the telegraph operator. The probability of job loss is inversely proportional to the salary.
As these jobs left the US, the economy naturally has to decline because there is less work and less salary being generated and so less economic momentum. But most people who lost their jobs didn't advance their capabilities into a new position, they just got another job of the same type. And that left them extremely vulnerable.
The jobs that remained in the US at the low end of the economic scale either can't be out-sourced (service jobs) or are not competing on a global scale (niche market in US) or in some way local to the US.
Now we introduce the terrorists and confidence declines. Economic momentum is like collecting Yu-Gi-Oh cards. They are valuable and long as people believe they are. But once confidence dropped there started a ripple effect of companies decreasing their orders and consumers canceling or lessening their non-vital services (hair dressers, manicures, lawn service, computer upgrades).
And now we starting hitting the housing market because people who expected a raise/advance in career didn't get it and through salary compression they started to lose the ability to fund their loans. And with the ARM coming due, they were wiped out.
Add to that the fact that most of the people who are losing their homes are not from a generation where 3% growth in a company is considered pretty decent. 1990 to 2001 represents a time of unusual economic growth and when we can no longer sustain 10-50% growth but only 5% it's considered a failure. But from 1900 to 1980 5% would have been considered good to great. The people who were moving into the McMansions had no clue how the world economy has historically operated and made a critical mistake. Personally I think it's their own fault and to bail them out is a crime in itself. But we have to keep the economic momentum.
With outsourcing, global competition, and the transfer of our lower work forces to other skills, we as a nation will be hard pressed to realize 5% growth over a continuous basis for some years to come.
And with that, we are very careful of the economic impacts we have with political decisions. Changing the economy by 3% against a nominal growth of 15% is nothing, but now we are risking 3% +/- 3% and that's too close to the edge. It's going to be a very difficult 20 years.
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
The US Government hasn't even yet provided much in the way of credible evidence to backup their 9/11 conspiracy theory. So it would be expecting a lot to expect them to provide any evidence for anything more recent than about 7 years ago.
How does this even make sense? (Score:2, Insightful)
Honestly, I've never figured out the whole "PIRACY FUNDS CRIME" angle since well, the whole premise of piracy is that I can get digital media for free!
It's all bullshit anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news, oil linked to terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Better play it safe (Score:3, Insightful)
Seeing how I certainly wouldn't want to fund such scum, and how it is impossible for a casual consumer to tell counterweight goods from genuine ones, I suppose this means that I'll have to download all of my IP stuff from BitTorrent from now on. Yes, I know, it might hurt the creators; but if you pay anyone, the money might find its way to the hands of terrorists, and we wouldn't want that, now would we ?
If you don't warez, the terrorists win ! Think of the children and keep those torrents seeding !