Mike Flynn
Big Government
11/27/2010
The always interesting Business Insider has this report:
The Department of Homeland Security’s ICE has launched a major crackdown on websites enabling copyright infringement or selling counterfeits of trademarked goods. In just the past few days ICE has seized at least 12 domains, TorrentFreak reports.
All of these domains now display the image shown here.
Okay, so each of the domains seized is probably breaking the law. Knowingly violating someone’s copyright is rightfully against the law. I don’t know anything about these sites, but, for now, I’ll assume they were selling knock-off goods as the real thing and not as some kind of faux Louis Vuitton. Still, this part of the article bothers me…
…the article notes that Congress hasn’t given this authority to the Attorney General:
A controversial bill that would allow the Attorney General to shut down domains on similar grounds was recently derailed (temporarily) by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.
The Attorney General is the chief enforcer of federal law and, accordingly, is responsible for enforcing federal copyright protections. And, he doesn’t have the authority that Homeland Security is asserting for itself…
Read the entire article at BigGovernment.com
