Elizabeth Higgs passed this image on to me–she was alerted to this by a European friend who used a site called TV Shack to watch American TV and found the image above. The center seal, from the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, is creepy and fascist-looking. And no wonder–the NIPRCC is a program of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is itself the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. This was apparently part of a crackdown by ICE that seized domains from nine websites engaged in the “criminal theft of American movies and television.” “Officials also seized assets from 15 bank, investment and advertising accounts and executed residential search warrants in North Carolina, New York, New Jersey and Washington….”
The DHS–protecting us from terrorism… and copyright infringement! Notice to all foreign nations who don’t crack down hard enough on patent and copyright infringement: you’re either with us, or you’re agin’ us!
Stephan is an attorney and libertarian writer in Houston, Director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF), and the founder and editor of Libertarian Papers. His most recent book is Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, with Jörg Guido Hülsmann; Mises Institute, 2009).
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Tyranny in the name of property rights.
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