"While the staff at iSONEWS sympathizes with the friends and associates of those arrested during Operation Buccaneer, we would like to stress that emotional reactions to the events of December 11 and 12 only foster an environment of hostility and panic. While it may be unreasonable to ask even those remotely affected by recent events for trust right now, it is imperative that individuals acquaint themselves with their Constitutional rights and the seemingly innocuous ways they may waive them in order to appropriately respond to interactions with law enforcement.
Terminology used in media coverage of the FBI raids coupled with the conveniently broad and vague grants of authority found in the recently-signed Patriot Act indicate the distinct possibility that accused copyright violators may be tried as terrorists, or in the very least, as members of a vast criminal conspiracy. Conspiracy proceedings differ from traditional criminal cases in the respect that the defendant's assumed intent to commit a crime can be punished in addition to the crime itself. Additionally, all proclaimed members of a conspiracy agreement are held accountable for the actions of their alleged conspirators. In other words, members of a conspiracy can be tried and punished for the actions of others under a theory of shared criminal intent. Because the thoughts and opinions of fellow conspiracy members may reveal important insights into this collective desire for mischief, shared rumors and simple hearsay may be used as evidence in a criminal conspiracy proceeding. As such, the staff of iSONEWS strongly suggests that individuals refrain from garnering information about alleged pirates or spreading rumors about piracy-related activities. Such actions may prove to be unjustly damaging to many. The staff of iSONEWS offers this advice not to help individuals avoid prosecution, but instead to safeguard individual rights from government agencies working in concert with organizations who openly oppose privacy guarantees. iSONEWS respects the law, but we strongly believe that the law should respect individuals.
iSONEWS does not condone nor sanction piracy, but we also do not endorse government actions taken against citizens at the behest of self-interested corporations. Perhaps it is time for industry pundits and legal thinkers to view the distribution of data on the Internet as something other than profit loss for the rich. It may be that the success and rampant popularity of unsanctioned intellectual property distribution over the Web, newsgroups, ftp servers, and file-sharing applications like Napster reveal a societal shift in attitudes toward intellectual property and copyright. Regrettably, it appears that the government has seen fit to aid the RIAA, MPAA, IDSA, BSA, and others in their monopolistic stance on data media. It is unfortunate that corporate greed has silenced this debate before it really had the opportunity to get started."
ISO News.
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01-12-2002, 08:37 AM
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