US Attorney General: Piracy Funding Terrorism

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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Nov 27, 2006
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The US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, equated piracy with counterfeiting in a speech yesterday to Silicon Valley executives at a meeting in San Jose. Time will tell if this is merely posturing or a sign of harsher measures to come.

…counterfeiting and piracy generate huge profits, much of it flowing to organized crime. 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. A primary goal of our IP enforcement mission is to show these criminals that they’re wrong.
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So...Merely a hypothetical situation, but what if you don't pay for your pirated goods?

You aren't really funding anything but your internet provider at that point...
 
hrm.. from what I read in the article, it appears they're talking about the people who counterfeit and mass produce copies to sell. Like the people in other countries who sell it for profit and use the profits for drug running, organize crime, funding terror groups, etc. It is reality though so I don't see the controversy.
 
And Saddam Hussein was clearly linked to Al Qaeda, too. And they clearly had weapons of mass distruction. Which made the argument for invading Iraq convenient.

Not to rehash the above arguments one way or the other --I just think that it shows us when our government clearly equates something, we should take it with a grain of salt. And especially in this case --our current administration has further turned the Attorney General's office into a farsical yes-man position, rather than someone whose job (as it used to be) is to make clear to the president what he/she can and cannot do according to the law.

Our government has made too many "clear" statements for me to trust them all any more, even when there's a possibility they may be telling the truth. There are also too many times when they tell the truth selectively in order to support corporations and bad law that favors them. And that's a shame.
 
Yeah, he's probably talking about mass piracy rings and not the casual downloader. Although I bet The Industry would want people to think that any form of piracy would aid terrorism...
 
In my experience, it's never wise to assume anything in government speeches. Sure, he might have been talking about the mass piracy rings but he could be talking about the music downloaders, the people with a few pirated games, and the users of pirated/cracked OS software. In the speech, he states three main points and the first one is the financial impact, which is almost always the focus of anti-piracy advocates. And we've all seen that RIAA is not shy about going after the big rings or the college kid in the dorm next to you.

All I'm saying is be careful in what you think/hope the Attorney General is saying here. It's ambiguous in scale.
 
they blaming everything to be terrorism so that they can modify and act in laws to attack people who bootleg and sell I guess at the same time They can come and attack the avg warez downloader too.

You figure with so much money we invest in this goverment they could do their jobs instead of attacking their citizens for their lack of doing their job.
 
It's true that making assumptions isn't wise; especially with government and politics. However, I think it'd be kinda a stretch to say that casual downloading is funding terrorism (or any other organized crime). How could not paying at all for something actually contribute money? Sure, it might have a financial impact on the industry since you're not buying it, but neither are you putting down money that could make its way over to the bad guys. Do the terrorist BitTorrent trackers get banner ad revenue or something?
 
The real funding for terrorism is because of the war on drugs and oil. So lets legalize drugs and start drilling in Alaska.
 
Don't worry this is just a lineup that will be piggybacked to strip any human rights from anyone in US using the internet. RIAA has payed important people enough money to get their carte blanche to act against consumers - it's their dream come true. Now every college student who can't afford their cartel prices but want's to listen to music can be labeled as terrorist supporter and thrown to jail.

Hail corporations! This is exactly why I ceased to buy ANY material related to 'entertainment' fascist industry.
 
BladeVenom said:
The real funding for terrorism is because of the war on drugs and oil. So lets legalize drugs and start drilling in Alaska.
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bingo

remember OMG TERRORISM!!!111!!!

so everything done here is....

for your (corporate/government exploitation) protection


though as an aside my guess is the Attorney general means piracy rings that sell these things, not cracking and warez groups that distribute via p2p. However like also mentioned, now that this was even brought up, the mpaa/riaa will use it as an ad campaign to equate everyone who doesn't take their shit terrorists
 
That wouldn't solve terrorism, LOL. The hate is rooted deep in the culture, and the religion justifies it. Resentment and anger is passed from generation to generation. The funding also comes from many people across the globe sending money back to "help the cause" or "help their family" or "free the palestinians", etc.. It doesn't matter if we didn't buy their oil. China is already buying, and they are using far more than enough that we could just be bumped aside if the middle eastern oil fields didn't feel like providing to us anymore.
 
mustang_steve: cloak and dagger politics created the terrorists in the first place. US Attorney, please STFU and go DIAF. Thank you, and Bob bless.
 
organization don't use money to fund terror. They use it for themselves. Only government fund terror and the mass of sheeps.
 
What political campaigns? He was a federal prosecutor (assholes think they're better than the FPD), *appointed* to the federal bench bench and now appointed to the AGs position. All lifetime no vote jobs, damn cushy if you ask me? That's not to say he hasn't been (ahem) influenced by certain trade organizations, but he's never had to take a campaign dollar from anyone.

ps Sick of the piracy=terrorism straw-hat arguments. He may have meant the terrorist orgs that sell pirated good, but will they EVER make that distinction? HELL NO. Will the cartels? Again, NO.
 
Fucking clueless....
Why is it that every elected member of government seems to think that computers and this "series of tubes" is either a fad, or something they don't particularly need to know anything about?
 
Actually scratch the lifetime position w/ the AG job. He's likely to get his walking papers w/ a new President, but the no vote/campaign thing still stands.
 
Soon enough music downloaders are going to end up it GTMO.
 
lol, man you guys blow this out of proportion. I thought the late night drive by media was bad. LOL
 
When in doubt, blame it on terrorism.

Kind of reminds me of the Family Guy episode when Lois ran for mayor.
 
This is the same garbage that the RIAA was promoting in their leaked video a few weeks ago. Its good to know that politicians aren't easily swayed...
 
And yet our foreign policy continues to fuel terrorism and they don't have an issue with that. :rolleyes:
 
Because logic has no place in dictating foreign policy. Just like logic has no place in creation of money.
 
w1retap said:
The funding also comes from many people across the globe sending money back to "help the cause" or "help their family" or "free the palestinians", etc.. It doesn't matter if we didn't buy their oil.
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Osama Bin Laden got his money from oil. He couldn't have done what he did without oil money. The Taliban made money from Opium, and would be a much smaller and have much less influence if they didn't have that money.

Hate may be the reason, but you can't buy explosives, propaganda, guns, and plane tickets with just hate.
 
blaming terrorism didn't do anything for the war on drugs... what makes them think that this tactic will work against piracy?
 
BladeVenom said:
Osama Bin Laden got his money from oil. He couldn't have done what he did without oil money. The Taliban made money from Opium, and would be a much smaller and have much less influence if they didn't have that money.

Hate may be the reason, but you can't buy explosives, propaganda, guns, and plane tickets with just hate.
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You need to do some research into the topic. The terror network is much wider than you envision, and there are many methods of funding.
 
Prove to me the link between:

Organize crime funding terror groups and making copies of software/movies.

If these OC groups didn't pirate data, will these terror groups stop getting funded?

I know.. how about Terror groups using piracy to fund their own programs.
 
...along with drugs, extorsion, kidnapping, counterfiting, fraud. Let's focus on Piracy tho.. cause that is eroding the fabric of our society more than anything else.
 
I haven't seen much monetary value come out of piracy where I live, in fact in a similar debate my friend observed that if he were to even bother selling pirated stuff that he'd be making about half the minimum wage, apparently this is enough to fund global terrorism.

Now what they don't realise is that by pissing off everyone 30 and under for the past few years, that in 30 years from now we'll be in control and undo all these unintelligent internet laws since we grew up knowing that the internet is not a 'series of tubes' and that it's foundation is much more than your boring ol' email.
 
So...by copying my friends cd and installing a program here and there i didnt directly pay for, a city will be nuked....hell yeah.....im gonna pirate more!!!!!
 
BladeVenom said:
Osama Bin Laden got his money from oil. He couldn't have done what he did without oil money. The Taliban made money from Opium, and would be a much smaller and have much less influence if they didn't have that money.

Hate may be the reason, but you can't buy explosives, propaganda, guns, and plane tickets with just hate.
Click to expand...

The money Osama Bin Laden had is peanuts compared to the money the US gave the Mujahideen factions to fight the soviets. In addition Its quite possible Osama Bin Laden would not have had the support he did, had US forces not been stationed in Saudi Arabia.
 
ahh terrorists are the new communists

You pay tax which goes into defence, who buys the weapons from the companys owned by the people who start the war.

And distract you all with WDMs, Terrorists, and "Threat Levels"

All with 3 outcomes

1 ) Less Rights for You in the name of security
2 ) Making these assholes rich enough to do this again in another 20 years.
3 ) Israel Expands and pisses the middle east of even more
 
the RIAA and MPAA fund terrorism - thats where all the settlement money goes... thats right! its true!;):D
 
Hate of RIAA/MPAA is so deeply rooted in the community that I doubt it will ever go away..
 
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