Homeland Security and Willful Copyright Infringement

Since when is copyright infringement a homeland security issue? Just asking....

According to a number of members of the web4lib listserv, a number of sites have been taken down by the US government under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), in part, for copyright infringement. Mashable has more information on the taking down of Torrent-Finder.com. 82 domain names were seized and replaced with the notice below.

In related but separate news, COICA (Combating Online Infrigement and Counterfeit Act) which was introduced as a bill on September 20th, 2010 received a unanimous 19-0 pass in the Senate Judiciary Committee and is awaiting a vote from the full senate. According to "Web Censorship Bill Sails Through Senate Committee," an article on Wired, the committee moved quickly to pass the bill that would allow entire sites to be shut down, allowing government censorship without due process.

While illegal activity with regard to intellectual property should be curbed, many people are concerned about the wide-sweeping powers of this proposed bill to shut down legitimate sites without due process.

What Do Firemen Do?

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury depicts firemen burning books. It is what they do. In a story that is disconcerting for those of us who believe in the right of freedom to read, MSNBC reports that firefighters are being trained by Homeland Security in the USA in a test program. They are being trained to look for illegal materials and report people who may be "hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States."

While law enforcement officials have stringent rules that control their access to private property, fire fighters have access in order to make inspections for the purposes of preventing fires. The ACLU is concerned about the implications of this program with regard to first amendment issues.

According to New York City Fire Chief Salvatore Cassano, information related to terrorism has been passed on from firefighters to law enforcement since the program began three years ago.

It would be interesting to see what kind of information officials are collecting that they believe relates to terrorism and to what degree one needs to be "discontent" before one is reported to the government.

This would be great fodder for a dystopian novel. Oh, wait....

MTV Movies Blog reports that Tom Hanks is showing great interest in starring as Guy Montag, the “fireman” in Fahrenheit 451.