Justice Eyes Intellectual Property Theft (Crackdown Like Terror/Drug Wars)

[Khephra]

NEW YORK -- The Justice Department next week will launch its most aggressive crackdown on intellectual property theft, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday.

Ashcroft told a conference of prosecutors that the department response to intellectual property theft "must be as forceful and aggressive and successful as our response to terrorism and violent crime and drugs and corruption has been."

snip.......

Ashcroft did not reveal further details, saying only that the program includes "new investigative resources" and "new prosecutorial tools."

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-brf-ashcroft-intellectual-property,0,5344568.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[Vincardog]

1. We all know how the War On Drugs is going

[kerryin2004]

2. Well since they have convicted no one of terrorist crimes..

I am sure that this needed the justice Dept. immediate attention.

[Odd Little Man]

3. Another "War on..."?

If Ashcroft is as successful as the War on Drugs and Terrorism nothing will change

[Kenneth ken]

4. GREAT!

Now we can have a "War On Intellect" - the major media will be front-line troops, I'm sure, since they're already waging that war. :eyes:

[MatrixEscape]

5. Ur-Fascism!

War on this and war on that. The colors are showing. More like a war on the people, in essence ... in disquise. Corporations get top billing here because they want to elevate and inflate intellectual property rights how far?

Forceful? Aggressive? Sounds like Jackboot talk when you raise copyright issues to the same level as terrorism. The drug "war" has been a joke so I won't even equate it with either. It just succeeds in putting many harmless people in jail and ruining their lives as much as, or more, than the drugs might have.

What's next? War on Liberals? War on Democrats? War on compassion?

I suggest that everyone read up on, and study, Fascism carefully. You are going to need this information! You may have assumptions about it that make you immune to seeing it as thrives and evolves here. It is more of a shape-shifter and is not just authoritarian in nature. If you are just looking out for Tyranny, you are going to miss it.

According to Roger Griffin, you could think of it as: palingenetic ultranationalistic populism.

A snip from Oncinus Blog:

"Fascism: modern political ideology that seeks to regenerate the social, economic, and cultural life of a country by basing it on a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity. Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy. Despite the idealistic goals of fascism, attempts to build fascist societies have led to wars and persecutions that caused millions of deaths. As a result, fascism is strongly associated with right-wing fanaticism, racism, totalitarianism, and violence."

This imparts to fascism a particular trait that Paxton describes as one of the real telltale signs of its presence:

... ach national variant of fascism draws its legitimacy, as we shall see, not from some universal scripture but from what it considers the most authentic elements of its own community identity. Religion, for example, would certainly play a much larger role in an authentic fascism in the United States than in the first European fascisms, which were pagan for contingent historical reasons.

You can read up on this all over the Net, but Orcinus is having a special on it, currently:

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

The only reason I am calling attention to this is because, if you cannot recognize and define Fascism carefully, you won't be noticing its progression until it is way too late to know.

There seems to be a potential for it to crop up when conditions are right and the corporate/state situation along with Religious Right Dominionism are showing major, red warning signs for sure, in my opinion.

[makhno]

13. The problem with fascism

Fascism has long, and purposefully, I might add, been associated in our pop culture with certain defining attributes. The ubiquity of military dress is one, prominent displays of state regalia is another, and I'm not talking about sticking a Stars and Stripes sticker on your pick-up truck. But above all fascism is black and white and bleak.

I'm firmly convinced that many of our fellow citizens simply cannot imagine fascism arising in a country where 1) life is colorful and sunny and 2) people actually do have fun: sports, parties, sex, and the like. In people's minds, fascism must look like something out of Schindler's List or 1984; Sex in the City simply cannot take place in a fascist society. The color barrier creates the perception that fascism is something only others can have, preferably in black and white, heavily polluted, industrial-looking countries where military parades are common.

Given the absolute lack of historical and political perspective among the US population, this perception, I believe, is one of the main drivers behind the flawed belief in the alien nature of fascism. "This cannot happen here" can be easily rewritten as "this isn't this kind of movie."

[jpgray]

6. War on intellectual theft?

In the case of this administration, that is definitely locking the barndoor after the horse has been stolen. :D

(This is a misuse of resources.)

[DeepModem Mom]

7. There are powerful interests, no doubt, supporting this, who contribute...

to Republican coffers, and will likely contribute even more.

[Carolab]

8. Here's an interesting case

Just a few days old--an "intellectual property case" concerning...DIEBOLD! (P.S. What would you expect from a government specializing in "secrecy"--THEIRS, not YOURS?")

Legal Affairs
Diebold Loses Case over Documents on Web
All Things Considered audio

All Things Considered, October 4, 2004 · A California district court rules that Diebold, the voting machine manufacturer, knowingly misused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to threaten ISPs for allowing users to post internal Diebold documents that showed flaws in its voting machines. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Internet and Society sued on behalf of one of the ISPs and the students involved. The judge also ruled that there was no copyright infringement. Hear Joel Rose of member station WHYY.

http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/

[american_mutt]

9. Wheee another failed 'war' on something!

Just what dumbaya needs...

[krkaufman]

10. Yes, downloading music is just as socially damaging...

... as crack cocaine.

[Steelangel]

11. whoa

that is quite scary.. but stupid.. Why should they waste their money on something else when they STILL does not solve terrorist problems..?

What next? our democracy? Liberals? Free-thinking people? our freedom? Where will they stop at?

Jeez man.

[Jose Diablo]

12. This will be the reason given for

search and seizure activities related to obtaining information on people against Bush being reselected.

Political suppression disguised as DCMA enforcement using Patriot Act methods.

And even if no evidence of violations of DCMA are found in the seized equipment, it is a easy thing to plant some false evidence by loading some software that is copyrighted. Change the load time in the file header information is a snap.

Why is it that I have so little respect for law enforcement. History maybe? Things similar to this have happened many times in the past. Why should this be any different?

The only terrorists I see are those making war against the American people.

[Mr E McSquare]

14. Makes me wonder....

If ass-crack is somehow behind this new thing where "hackers" can hide a worm in a jpeg file and take control of a users computer when downloaded.
Jpeg being the most common format for veiwing porn.

[bemildred]

15. "new investigative resources" and "new prosecutorial tools."

And the same old incompetent, corrupt leadership.

[ChrisK]

16. What I find odd is

that there only doing this, in my opinion, because of outside pressure from a few in the industries who are reaching there limits on how to handle things like music and movie piracy and need a bit more help trying to curb its usage.

I'm sorry but I don't see "intellectual property theft" up there with "terrorism and violent crime and drugs and corruption"...for the most part there harmless crimes, harmless that no one is or has been killed when they downloaded a song or watched a movie thats been made bootlegged, sure there are people that are not getting there fare share of the money but come on thats a far stretch from killing someone...if the monies where used to fund some terrorist groups I can see that but your still not dealing with the MAIN problem and thats terrorist and there networks.

Maybe the point needs to be made to the industries that if they weren't so greedy and stopped charging some insane price for there media they would find more people buying there Cd's and DVDs then "steeling" them....and I will not get into the quality of the crap they keep pumping out.

The media needs to get a look at whats happening from the ground up and see why there loosing money...I'll give them a clue, its not the pirates that are costing you buyers...its the quality of what your selling...would you, the media, buy some of that crap thats out there at the prices you have set and not feel ripped off?...I doubt it.

[truthisfreedom]

17. nice prelude to the "war on people." just twist it one turn too tight...

and you can rationalize using a giant lens to burn us like ants on the sidewalk.