The Bush administration says it has new evidence that Internet hackers are tied to terrorist organizations. I am not making this up...really. In a C/Net story "Congress readies new digital copyright bill" Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says about copyright infringers and hackers "proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities."
Draft legislation, created by the Bush administration, will be introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith. Smith's press secretary, Terry Shawn, said Friday that the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 is expected to "be introduced in the near future." The C/Net story says the bill contains the following provisions;
- Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would establish a new copyright unit inside the FBI and budgets $20 million on topics including creating "advanced tools of forensic science to investigate" copyright crimes.
- Amends existing law to permit criminal enforcement of copyright violations even if the work was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.
- Boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000.
- Creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized must be "destroyed" or otherwise disposed of, for instance at a government auction. Criminal asset forfeiture will be done following the rules established by federal drug laws.
- Says copyright holders can impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" infringements.
This proposed legislation is not yet law, but lobbyists for the RIAA, SIIA, and the MPAA are already hard at work to make sure it passes. The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) will presumably carry the torch for the opposition.
There are always at least two sides to every story...and legal case. The bounds of copyright infringement, especially on the Internet, can be very unclear. For this blog post I copied (with attribution) several snippets from the C/Net article. Did I commit copyright infringement? I don't think so, but the proposed legislation would muddy the waters even further...and perhaps label me a terrorist. Wow! How far has the pendulum swung?
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