Agent Fescado
FBI SWOOPS INTO ARIZONA
Fri Apr 23, 2004 00:43
68.2.207.206

I wanted you to see where the priorities lie:

FBI swoops into Arizona to search for illegal online music trading evidence. This is an absurd outrage, an insult to our security. If they could feign half the interest they place on music trading on illegal aliens, questionable middle-easterners enrolled in flight schools and other terrorist investigations... well, it's just ridiculous where the priorities are. WAKE UP AMERICA! The Gestapo doesn't care about your safety.

Agent Fescado
www.humanunderground.com

FBI sweep in Valley part of nationwide probe on Internet piracy
Michelle Rushlo
Associated Press
Apr. 22, 2004 02:00 PM

A dawn FBI raid of a school district office here was part of an international crackdown on pirated music, movies and software, officials said Thursday.

Early Wednesday morning, FBI agents executed a search warrant at a Deer Valley Unified School District administrative building and two other Arizona sites. In all, 128 locations were raided by agents in the United States and abroad, said FBI spokeswoman Susan Herskovits. She declined to say what other locations were searched.

She said the investigation, which began in February, was part of an initiative to stop Internet piracy groups, which illegally download and share music, movies and software.

The undercover operation identified more than 100 people in the United States and abroad involved in the theft of more than $50 million worth of pirated material, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.

No arrests were immediately made.

The initiative, known as "Operation Fastlink," resulted in the seizure of more than 200 computers, including 30 that served as storage and distribution hubs. A spokesman for the Deer Valley district declined to say if any of the district's equipment was seized.

The school district had no knowledge of the investigation until the search warrant on Wednesday and remains unsure whether anyone related to the district was involved, said Timothy Tait, a Deer Valley spokesman.

"We're not sure if we have people in the district that may be involved in this or if our systems may have been compromised," he said.

He said however, the district does not believe any students were involved.

The movie and music industry, which has taken a number of civil actions against file sharers, has been calling for increased criminal prosecution.

Cindy Cohen, legal director for the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the raids are a sign that enforcement is being ratcheted up.

"There have been some individual criminal things but very few. The FBI so far - and rightfully so - has rated (copyright issues) below stopping terrorists," she said. "Nobody dies in copyright infringement."

But Herskovits defended the agency's decision to devote resources to such cases.

"If it was your artistic work and you spent a lot of time and money producing it and people could just have it for free, you would feel differently about it," she said.

She also noted that copyright infringement is a violation of federal law, which the agency is entrusted with enforcing.

Cohen said criminal investigations of copyright violations are likely to increase.

"This is the start of something," she said. "It's going to continue."
http://www.azcentral.com/families/education/articles/0422internet-pirates22-ON.html

• Re: FBI SWOOPS INTO ARIZONA — Greg collins, Fri Apr 23 02:07