Common sense dictates that an IP address is just a number associated with a connection, and not a human being. Copyright crusaders aren’t exactly known for loads of common sense and rationality. Thankfully, a New York judge has ruled that an IP address alone is not enough to pin illegal downloads on a specific person.

The ruling comes in the context of mass torrent lawsuits that just dump thousands of IP addresses into the court and charge everyone associated with them. Cases like theHurt Locker suit filed against 5,000 people for downloading the movie. Judge Gary Brown’s ruling isn’t the first to point out that these cases are idiotic, since there is no practical way to efficiently tie that many address to the specific individuals doing the downloading, but it’s by far the most detailed. We’ve embedded the full ruling below. [TorrentFreak]

Judge Gary Brown IP Address Ruling

Source: Gizmodo.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

George Lucas is the man that nearly every fucked up juvenile thirty-something fanboy loves to hate. Now I understand that people have the right to be critical of someone’s work when it is put out there for public consumption but to hate the man as vehemently as many people do, is just absurd. Many fans of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ feel that somehow those franchises are theirs and that Mr. Lucas has gone out and ruined them. People truly feel that these massive franchises are their intellectual property and that they have some sort of ownership rights to them. Nothing is further than the truth. So when I read articles all over the Internet about how much of a greedy sick untalented hack George Lucas has become, it really pisses me off. Now don’t get your vaginas in a tizzy, I’m not here to defend the prequel trilogy or “Crystal Skull”, in fact, as a fan, I have serious issues with these films as well but unlike the consensus, I don’t allow my dislike of some minor things that are insignificant to my life as a whole push me over the edge to the point that I am out for this man’s blood. I certainly don’t harbor the opinion that somehow his later work has bastardized and ruined his earlier magic. Even with some of the questionable changes to the original ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, the films are pretty damn solid and to discount their greatness over Jar Jar Binks and wooden actors is asinine.

The original trilogy set the stage for what was to come in the future of movies. They were damn good films in every respect and they influenced nearly every person that has picked up a film camera since they came out. ‘Star Wars’ forever changed Hollywood, the art of film making and special effects. George Lucas, through his intuitive and crafty brilliance, upped the ante and forced film studios to catch up to his imagination and vision. The sad thing is that people often forget this when bashing a man that just wants to share his stories with the world. It’s quite obvious that George Lucas is a child at heart and he only wants to make us smile. However, there’s always an asshole in every group and unfortunately for Mr. Lucas, it seems as if the assholes outnumber the sane people in this instance.

I don’t really understand where this entitled attitude comes from with fans and I’m not just talking about ‘Star Wars’ fans, I’m talking about fans of any franchise really. These people who get so disenfranchised with something they once loved to the point that it makes them spit venom at the stories’ creators is childish and narrow-minded. If guys like Lucas didn’t create and deliver their masterpieces to you in the first place, you’d have nothing to base any of this on. To curse a man’s legacy and the man himself, who has given you decades of joy is pretty disgusting and just shows how sad and pathetic some of these pompous bitches are. Hell, I still remember people being in an uproar over the ‘Battlestar Galactica’ remake before they actually saw it. In the end, it was pretty close to being a science fiction masterpiece! Sometimes you have to spread your wings and fly and that’s what Lucas did. When series are rebooted, remade or continued on, it can go really well or really bad – that’s the risk involved but the person who owns the rights to the property has the freedom to do what they want with it.

No one owns ‘Star Wars’ but George Lucas. For anyone to claim that they have some sort of right over the man’s blood, sweat and tears is ridiculous. He owns the franchise, he owns the characters within it and he can tell any tale that he wants to tell. The fact of the matter is, people have a choice. They don’t have to watch the new material if it isn’t up to their standard and fails to meet their expectations. These little jitterbugs act as if there is some sort of magical gun to their head and that they are forced to soak up every bit of ‘Star Wars’ that is released. Well people, you don’t have to do a damn thing! You can opt out and never look back.

The problem is that so many people put so much of themselves into this fantasy world that they lose a sense of their own reality and when things don’t go the way that they want, the fantasy starts to remind these sad people living vicariously through the fiction that real life is moving along without them. Nostalgia is a motherfucker and it only seems to exist strongly in those who are unsatisfied with what’s really going on around them. To have intense hatred for George Lucas or any great storyteller because their work becomes less than what it once was is pathetic. To invest that much emotion into complete fantasy is retarded. Yes, I wrote “retarded”.. call the sensitivity police!

Kids today, and by kids I mean middle-aged nerds, just don’t seem to respect property rights. Of course, if someone thought that they could infringe upon or add their unlimited hysterical two cents to everything one of these hypocritical fanboys did, they’d have a serious fucking shit fit. Hell, they probably wouldn’t come out of their mom’s basement for several months while losing themselves in an endless one-person ‘Skyrim’ marathon where the only way they’ll even eat is if their mother slides a plate of cold cuts and cheese puffs under the door.

The reason I feel the need to write this rant is because I’ve come across several articles lately that have stated that the fans of these franchises have invested so much of themselves into them that they truly believe they now have some sort of stake or ownership in the property. Yes, the property that they have never contributed anything to creatively other than writing their own shitty unofficial and non-profit fan fictions and role-playing scenarios dictated amongst their equally entitled geek pals. You people have no claim to anything and to think you do makes you look like socialist pussies who are convinced that the whole world and everyone in it owes them something just because they are breathing. Fuck you people. If you don’t like something, move on. Hell, stop crying into your tauntaun sleeping bags and go create something yourself. If you think you know more about storytelling, science fiction and fantasy than George Lucas then go out and fucking prove it! If you don’t, then you’re nothing more than a whiney talentless hack yourself and I’d tell you to go get a girlfriend or boyfriend but the only people that would have you won’t leave their basements either. Create something for once in your life and stop trying to destroy someone who just wants to share their imagination with you. You people are the parasite sponges of the world that rape and pillage the ideas of those greater than you because you’re weak and can’t make something bigger than yourself that people will passionately care about. It’s time to grow up and stop acting like ungrateful cunts.

The truth is, George Lucas has contributed more to this world than any of you probably ever will. Besides, you’re the ones “torturing” yourselves with weekly doses of ‘Clone Wars’ not Mr. Lucas. Guess what idiots, YOU DON’T HAVE TO WATCH IT! Accept it and move on with your sad pathetic lives.

Yahoo Inc. is suing Facebook, following through on a threat made last month. Yahoo alleges Facebook has infringed on 10 of its patents covering advertising, privacy controls, and social networking.

Facebook pledged to defend itself vigorously against what it called “puzzling actions’’ by Yahoo. “We’re disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation,’’ Facebook said.

The claims could cast a spotlight on Facebook’s vulnerabilities as it tries to complete an initial public offering of stock this spring. At the end of 2011, 56 US patents had been issued to Facebook – a relatively small number, compared with other big tech companies. Yahoo owns more than 1,000 patents.

Yahoo said it has invested “substantial resources in research and development’’ that have led to patents other companies have licensed.

Yahoo got hundreds of millions of dollars from a patent settlement with Google Inc. just before that company went public in 2004.

Source: The Boston Globe.

SOPA and PIPA are threat to free speech.

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul has promised to do everything within his power to ensure the draconian Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are not brought to a vote.

Paul says he will filibuster PIPA in the Senate owing to the fact that the bill is a direct threat to the First Amendment.

“Both PIPA and SOPA give the federal government unprecedented and unconstitutional power to censor the Internet,” Paul said in a statement. “These bills enable the government to shut down websites that it deems guilty of violating copyright laws.”

Paul continued: “While we support copyright protections, we are also concerned about websites being shut down without their day in court, and making innocent third parties bear the costs of solving someone else’s problems.

“I will not sit idly by while PIPA and SOPA eliminate the constitutionally protected rights to due process and free speech. For these reasons, I have pledged to oppose, filibuster and do everything in my power to stop government censorship of the Internet,” Paul said.

As we have documented, SOPA and PIPA are bills essentially written by powerful lobbyists for the entertainment industry. They do not effectively stop real piracy, rather they target websites, giving the government the power to seize any site of its choosing and take it offline should the site be deemed to be infringing copyright.

What actually constitutes infringement of copyright according the the legislation, however, is so broad that a site could be targeted merely for displaying a hyper link.

Rob Beschizza, the managing editor of Boing Boing.net, a popular blog, explains futher:

Following an internet wide protest against the legislation yesterday, several lawmakers havedefected and dropped their support for SOPA and PIPA.

A test vote is scheduled in the Senate for next Tuesday, the House will address the legislation sometime in February.

——————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source: Infowars.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Today is a great day for liberty. As I write this it is January 18^th, 2012 and the Internet is ablaze with anger towards SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act). Not only was The Swash down in protest of these dastardly bills but Internet giants Wikipedia and Reddit were down as well. Shit, even Google participated in this blackout with a unique graphic on their page that lead to information about these two horrible laws and what you can do to fight them.

I was more than ecstatic today when I signed into my Facebook account and was overwhelmed by all the people who blacked out their own photos and had status updates and links protesting SOPA and PIPA plastered all over the home page. The impact of this protest is literally reaching further than any other online protest I’ve ever witnessed or been a part of. In fact, in just a few short hours, the tide has turned and the pimps pushing this law are now starting to run like the two-faced pandering bastards they are. I guess when you shine a little light the cockroaches scatter.

One of my favorite punching bags, Marco Rubio – the Republican senator form my home state of Florida, was a co-sponsor on one of these evil bills but he has now come out against it. This is because Rubio is a dickbag, a panderer and a wolf in Tea Party clothing. This “noble” act doesn’t excuse the fact that he co-sponsored PIPA and was also a champion for the insanely tyrannical NDAA bill, which just passed recently. Don’t get excited and let Rubio fool you, when this dies down, he’ll help reintroduce the bill with a few modifications and continue on his fascist path.

Conservative darling Paul Ryan just wrote this status update on his Facebook:

The Internet is one of the most magnificent expressions of freedom and free enterprise in history. It should stay that way. While H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, attempts to address a legitimate problem, I believe it creates the precedent and possibility for undue regulation, censorship and legal abuse. I do not support H.R. 3261 in its current form and will oppose the legislation should it come before the full House.

While that sounds all fine and dandy, Mr. Ryan doesn’t fully oppose the idea of the bill and chances are, if it was tweaked and the opposition towards it died down, he may just very well vote for it.

Senators Jim DeMint, Robert Menendez and others have come out against this tyranny. Another co-sponsor, Arizona congressman Ben Quayle has withdrawn his support. Freedom fighter and libertarian leaning Michigan congressman Justin Amash continues to speak out against this, as does Kentucky senator Rand Paul and his father, Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.

The opposition to these bills has grown so quickly in the last several hours that six Republican senators wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The letter states:

We have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights.

For those of you who have been in the dark, I’ll break down what these bills are. In a nutshell, what they are supposed to do is to protect copyrighted material and eliminate piracy. What they actually do is a different story.

Basically, these bills give the entertainment industry the power to censor the Internet and breed a whole new type of crony capitalism while forcing us into a digital police state. You see, private corporations want to be able to choose what can and cannot be censored on the Internet. These corporations are trying to protect their property, which is understandable, and since the Internet is a bastion for downloading music and movies, they want to be able to tighten their grip and control how the whole system works. Considering that many of the sources for this copyrighted material exists outside of United States jurisdiction, these laws are being put in place to give the government and their corporate buddies an easier way at stopping copyright infringement. Again, that is understandable but the methods about doing this are just awful.

The first thing that this does is it gives the power to United States based ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to have special access at blocking infringing domain names. This also gives companies the power to sue websites, bloggers or whoever until they remove links or information directing Internet users to anything that they deem as infringed upon property.

Secondly, the government and their corporate pals would also be given the power to cut off funds to any websites that they believe are infringing on copyrights. Essentially, they can forcibly cancel infringing websites accounts with financial services and advertisers.

Now even though this all may seem somewhat proactive, one has to look at what actually constitutes copyright infringement. The description that they provide is so broad that if you technically upload a video to YouTube and there happens to be a piece of a song playing in the background, even if it’s just on the radio while you’re talking to the camera unaware of it, you have just infringed on copyrighted material and could face some serious penalties. This is just a small example but think of all the things you come across on the Internet on a daily basis that could technically be considered as copyright infringement. Violations are pretty much fucking everywhere! Hell, the whole Internet is a violation!

Besides all that, if there is a will there is a way. These laws won’t stop Internet users from finding music and movies to download illegally. In fact, even if a URL is blocked, an Internet user can still access the site via its IP address. Hell, this might start a revolution in web browsing and millions of digital pirates will be navigating the Net with IPs as opposed to typical URLs.

Another thing to mention is that these laws are incredibly bad for business. Essentially, they will cripple and stifle startups as corporations will have the power to sue any company that they feel isn’t properly protecting their interests. In a classic case of crony capitalism or corporatism, this allows the giants to stay on top, where they can look down and crush any growing company that may become a viable competitor for their business. Basically, these bills will create and perpetuate monopolies. When large corporations have the power to bankrupt new search engines and social networking sites, there really isn’t room for growth or innovation. We might as well just go back to the days of dark dingy uninspiring chat rooms.

The scariest thing that these laws will do is tamper with the Internet as a whole from the backend. By messing around with the Internet’s vast registry of domain names we could very well end up with a World Wide Web that is less stable and less secure. At the end of the day, these laws won’t stop piracy, as they claim and they will just create an environment for a new type of corporatism while leaving the Internet less secure and less reliable than it has ever been.

The Internet has already become a playground for government and corporate meddling. Hell, they already have laws in place to protect copyright infringement yet they want to push the envelope as far as they can. As of right now, the government and corporations already have the power to block any site just off of one infringing link. Social media giants like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and others are now forced to censor their users because if they don’t, they become liable for the material their users upload and could be forced to shut down. On top of that, an ordinary Internet user could already be sentenced to prison for up to five years just for posting any copyrighted material – this includes someone like Tay Zonday who became an Internet sensation for singing pop song covers.

This situation is incredibly fucked up and it is just one more battle in a long line or tyrannous laws that the government is trying to impose on us. Just add this ingredient to the same bowl of tyranny punch that already consists of the PATRIOT Act, NDAA, indefinite detention, Homeland Security, the TSA, previous Internet censorship, FEMA, etc. The list goes on and on and hopefully people’s distrust in government has grown to the point that all future legislation the tyrants bring forth will be scrutinized and passionately opposed as much as SOPA and PIPA.

In the end, we’ve got to chain these bastards’ feet to the grill and turn up the fire until they do what we say because frankly, that’s their damn job.

*Taken from Infowars. Written by Kurt Nimmo.

Techdirt reports that Senate bill 978 – a bill to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright, and for other purposes – may be used to prosecute people for embedding YouTube videos.

According to Mark Masnick, if a website embeds a YouTube video that is determined to have infringed on copyright and more than 10 people view it on that website, the owner or others associated with the website could face up to five years in prison.

Read Masnick’s article here. He explains how the new law would expand copyright violations from reproducing and distributing to performing – including streaming video over the internet.

As readers of Infowars.com know, many videos are removed from YouTube after copyright owners complain about infringement. This happens with thousands of news clips every year. Most people are familiar with the now common black box replacing a video that says the video has been removed for copyright reasons.

If enacted, this law will go one step further and turn people who embed a copyrighted video into criminals. It will also set the stage to criminalize linking to copyrighted information — like corporate media news sources — and shut down the alternative media.

It will also make people think twice about putting up all kinds of videos, from news reports to clips from documentaries and other educational material.

It does not take a vivid imagination to realize the political implications of this legislation.

Here is the full text of the bill.

*Taken from Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Forget copyright infringement, You Tube is now complying with removal orders from governments to stop populist rage going viral.

In a frightening example of how the state is tightening its grip around the free Internet, it has emerged that You Tube is complying with thousands of requests from governments to censor and remove videos that show protests and other examples of citizens simply asserting their rights, while also deleting search terms by government mandate.

The latest example is You Tube’s compliance with a request from the British government to censor footage of the British Constitution Group’s Lawful Rebellion protest, during which they attempted to civilly arrest Judge Michael Peake at Birkenhead county court.

Peake was ruling on a case involving Roger Hayes, former member of UKIP, who has refused to pay council tax, both as a protest against the government’s treasonous activities in sacrificing Britain to globalist interests and as a result of Hayes clearly proving that council tax is illegal.

CONTINUED..

My Two Cents: It’s a good thing they’re looking out for all of us! Can’t wait to see prisons full of people who downloaded ‘Gossip Girl’ episodes. Shit.. and you thought only the War on Drugs was imprisoning hardocre criminals. Nope, now anyone using a torrent site will be exposed for who they are, serial rapists! End Two Cents.

*Taken from Cnet.

The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making “illegal streaming” of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers.

In a 20-page white paper (PDF), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix “deficiencies that could hinder enforcement” of intellectual property laws.

The report was prepared by Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator who received Senate confirmation in December 2009, and represents a broad tightening of many forms of intellectual property law including ones that deal with counterfeit pharmaceuticals and overseas royalties for copyright holders. (See CNET’s reportlast month previewing today’s white paper.)

Some of the highlights:

• The White House is concerned that “illegal streaming of content” may not be covered by criminal law, saying “questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works.” To resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to “clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances.”

• Under federal law, wiretaps may only be conducted in investigations of serious crimes, a list that was expanded by the 2001 Patriot Act to include offenses such as material support of terrorism and use of weapons of mass destruction. The administration is proposing to add copyright and trademark infringement, arguing that move “would assist U.S. law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate those offenses.”

• Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it’s generally illegal to distribute hardware or software–such as the DVD-decoding software Handbrake available from a server in France–that can “circumvent” copy protection technology. The administration is proposing that if Homeland Security seizes circumvention devices, it be permitted to “inform rightholders,” “provide samples of such devices,” and assist “them in bringing civil actions.”

The term “fair use” does not appear anywhere in the report. But it does mention Web sites like The Pirate Bay, which is hosted in Sweden, when warning that “foreign-based and foreign-controlled Web sites and Web services raise particular concerns for U.S. enforcement efforts.” (See previous coverage of a congressional hearing on overseas sites.)

The usual copyright hawks, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, applauded the paper, which grew out of a so-called joint strategic plan that Vice President Biden and Espinel announced in June 2010.

Rob Calia, a senior director at the Chamber’s Global Intellectual Property Center, said we “strongly support the white paper’s call for Congress to clarify that criminal copyright infringement through unauthorized streaming, is a felony. We know both the House and Senate are looking at this issue and encourage them to work closely with the administration and other stakeholders to combat this growing threat.”

In October 2008, President Bush signed into law the so-called Pro IP ACT, which created Espinel’s position and increased penalties for infringement, after expressing its opposition to an earlier version.

Unless legislative proposals–like one nearly a decade ago implanting strict copy controls in digital devices–go too far, digital copyright tends not to be a particularly partisan topic. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, near-universally disliked by programmers and engineers for its anti-circumvention section, was approved unanimously in the U.S. Senate.

At the same time, Democratic politicians tend to be a bit more enthusiastic about the topic. Biden was a close Senate ally of copyright holders, and President Obama picked top copyright industry lawyers for Justice Department posts. Last year, Biden warned that “piracy is theft.”

No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, which is broadly consistent with the trend for the last two decades, according to OpenSecrets.org.

*Taken from Sites and Blogs.

In order to seize the domain names without notice to the owners, the Government uses a procedure that permits it to bring an action directly against a piece of property used in the commission of a crime–in this case the domain name–rather than the owner.  This type of action (called an “In Rem” forfeiture) is not new.  In the past, the government has used In Rem actions for purposes such as an action against an automobile used to transport bootleg whiskey.

An In Rem action does not necessarily require the Government to wait until a court hears both sides and rules that the property has been used for illegal purposes and is subject to forfeiture.  Instead, in many cases, the law is written so that all the Government has to do is to sign an affidavit that demonstrates probable cause for the forfeiture, which is signed by a magistrate judge and the Government can seize the property.

To carry out the In Our Sites program, ICE has treated these domains like any other instrument used for common theft and judges have signed off on their affidavits.  The U.S. Attorney has publicly exclaimed that website operators like Brian McCarthy are hiding “behind the anonymity of the Internet to make a quick buck through what is little more than high-tech thievery.”

The Government’s view on the domain seizures seems to be overly simplistic and it ignores the fact that a domain is not the same as a gun or a boat used to transport narcotics.  A domain is a unique combination of different types of property, including an address, a valuable asset, a brand and a medium for speech.

Any Government seizure of private property raises Constitutional questions.  Here, I will outline the five most pressing Constitutional questions that have arisen because of the manner in which the Government has chosen to seize this unique type of property.

On the other hand, supporters of the constitutionality of ICE’s actions, such as Terry Hart, point out that the Supreme Court has permitted prior restraint of certain items, such as obscene materials or threats to national security.  However, even these supporters recognize that these exceptions are premised on the Government ensuring a prompt judicial determination.  Hart stated that “in effect, the Court recognizes the danger that too long of a temporary restraint on speech-related items can have the effect of a final restraint.”  While true, this analysis does not address the differences between obscene material and links to infringing material.  Additionally, it would not save ICE’s procedures because the Government has not, in fact, provided an immediate hearing on the seized domains.

Even if the types of sites that have been previously targeted, often consisting of links to other sites, were not a form of protected speech, there is still concern that endorsing these seizures would ultimately lead to the Government seizing the domains of sites expressing viewpoints it deems dangerous.   ICE Director John Morton told Politico that the Government was not interested in going after bloggers or discussion boards.  Morton said, “We’re not about what is being said by anybody. We’re about making sure that the intellectual property laws of the United States, which are clear, are enforced. When somebody spends hundreds of millions of dollars to develop the next movie or a billion dollars to develop the next heart medicine, the innovation and the enterprise that went into that effort is protected as the law provides. It’s that simple.”

Certain constitutional rights sometimes take a backseat to crucial practical considerations, such as the Government’s concern that property involved in a crime will disappear if it is not immediately seized.

For example, the Supreme Court has allowed seizures without prior notice or hearing in a case involving the seizure of a yacht believed to be used to transport drugs.  The Court was swayed by the fact that a yacht is the ”sort [of property] that could be removed to another jurisdiction, destroyed, or concealed, if advance warning of confiscation were given.”  However, in a later case, the Court found such a seizure against real estate ”which, by its very nature, can be neither moved nor concealed,” to be unconstitutional.

A domain is not the same as real estate.  Like real estate, a domain has an address and space within which the owner can build, but that space is not confined to finite borders or an address the way that real property is.  Despite the differences, a domain is more like real estate than it is like a yacht.  A domain can be sold, but it cannot be moved or concealed from the Government without defeating the purpose of having a domain in the first place.

ICE also unwittingly made its critics’ point last month when it mistakenly seized the domain names of 84,000 websites.  The Government had falsely accused the sites of child pornography.  This type of large-scale, disastrous mistake illustrates the constitutional deficiencies of the seizures.

To be clear, the Constitution does not demand that the Government always be right.  For the Government to be able to effectively seek justice, falsely accused and falsely punished citizens are inevitable tragedies.  However, the Constitution does require the Government to institute sufficient procedures that reasonably protect a person’s freedom and property from a wrongful taking.

In many ways, the whole point of due process is to protect citizens from wrongful Government action.  The Supreme Court has explained that the right to notice and a hearing prior to a government seizure is for the purpose of enabling an individual “to protect his use and possession of property from arbitrary encroachment-to minimize substantively unfair or mistaken deprivations of property.”

Supporters of the ICE seizures will point to the fact that, despite the lack of notice and hearing, a seizure cannot occur without a judge finding that the Government’s affidavit demonstrates probable cause.  However, critics get no comfort from the fact that ICE cannot kick down your virtual door without a judge’s sign off.   Last week, during a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet, California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren grilled the Obama administration’s Intellectual Property Czar Victoria Espinel about the Constitutional shortcomings of the ICE domain seizures.  Espinel attempted to argue that a judge’s sign off amounted to due process.  Lofgren tersely countered by saying “With all due respect, judges sign a lot of things.”

See the exchange and Lofgren’s full line of questioning in the video below:

Lofgren makes a good point.  Several other commentators have pointed out that judges signed off on the affidavits despite numerous factual and technical errors.  The perception that the judge’s review was inadequate was certainly not helped by the fact that Magistrate Judge Margaret Nagle literally used a rubber stamp, rather than a pen, to sign the December affidavits.

*Taken from Activist Post. Written by Eric Blair.

The establishment has been desperately trying to implement legal control over the Internet. They’re attacking freedom of speech and the open Internet from all angles; through government tools, corporate methods, and even the courts. All three of these methods are converging in the WikiLeaks case, but that’s not the only battle being waged in the so-called “all-out cyber war.”

The government, through the DHS, has already shut down over 80 websites for copyright infringement without due process, in addition to floating the idea to tax information websites. Corporations like Google, Verizon, and others are making deals to tip the Internet in favor of major players.  Finally, in the courts, ambulance-chasing copyright infringement lawyers are bullying blogs to pay settlements despite Fair Use rights — while their ultimate goal is to set a golden precedent with which to attack all news aggregating websites.

Don’t you see what’s happening here as the media continues to hype this cyber war?  Because of the fierce resistance to all proposed changes to the Internet, they need an Internet “Pearl Harbor” to usher in these draconian laws. As the hacktivist army of WikiLeaks defenders are now reportedlyturning their focus on UK government websites, we can expect that after the first major Web interruption, governments will convene urgent meetings to demand better enforcement and more control over the Internet.

Therefore this cyber war would seem to be playing right into their hands — as already, mainstream polling on the sheeple ranch called the United States shows that 70% believe Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is doing harm and should be prosecuted.  It won’t be difficult to convince the masses to shut down dissent if essential infrastructure is “attacked” in this all-out war.  Especially if that infrastructure is the Web itself.

Indeed, even the aware among us would suffer greatly if the Internet was down for multiple days.  It is our heroin, our entertainment, our news, our communication medium,  our livelihood . . . in essence, our freedom.  I think most of us would beg for at least limited access after less than a week of being blacked out.  We’d be on our hands and knees saying, “We don’t need all of it; just give us enough access to get our fix.  Please, I’ll even register for an Internet tracking ID number.”

Incidentally, it would seem the elite know the power they have over this technical opiate of the masses simply by shutting it down when the offensive anarchy gets too chaotic.  They will simply switch the Fortune 1000 over to Internet 2 and let us vermin swim in the virus-ridden battle-torn Internet 1.  Don’t worry, though, they’ll let us buy controlled access to their network where they will openly track, trace, and database our every keystroke and mouse click.

However, this war is not about technology, it is about the freedom of information and ability to view it in privacy.  Anyone who is fundamentally against WikiLeaks is the enemy of free speech, because WikiLeaks has become the poster child for the people’s right to information.  The stronger a critic expresses their disdain for WikiLeaks, the more tyrannical we can expect the response to be.  In other words, the more dangerous they can make WikiLeaks out to be, calling them “high-tech terrorist” and the like, the further the compromise bar is pushed in the establishment’s direction.

Because the establishment is already in control of the technical gears of the Internet, they can and will win a technical cyber war — even if they have to go nuclear and pull the plug to do it.  The hacktivists fighting for Internet free speech have truth and principle on their side, yet they may be falling into the King’s trap quite effectively.  Just as the establishment needs violent street protests to justify their armored police state, they also need offensive protests by these hacktivists to justify policing the Internet.

Victor Hugo famously said, “All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”  The ideas of liberty, justice, peace, and the right to open-source knowledge has come of age; it is clear that the globalist machine is opposed to these ideals — thus they’re losing the information war.  Therefore, they must attack the battlefield of the infowar under the pretext of protecting cyberspace from those pesky freedom-of-speech bandits.

This so-called cyber war will likely fester into a Pearl Harbor-type event.  When it occurs, the mainstream media will incite fear in one hand and sell the solution out of the other.  We must be aware of their tactics and keep fighting for Internet freedom with heavy doses of the truth.