The Secret Copyright Gestapo

It's generally thought that secret cloak and dagger operations with secret agents operating across boarders with rights to search and seize without requiring court warrants only existed on the other side of the Iron Curtain in the Cold War days. If 'they' get their way it could soon and it would come to be not in some oppressive regime but here in the free world.

There is a proposal to create an international copyright enforcement agency. The agreement called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement which the United States, Canada, The European Union Mexico and South Korea are involve would set up an enforcement agency that would have the power search, seize and destroy any device suspected to contain pirated content without having any court order or even a complaint from rights holders.

There has not even been any sort of international agreement on drug enforcement so how can this consensus come about so quickly? Why is it that legislators can be so concerned with the civil rights of drug dealers, but yet be so quick to take away little Sally's iPod just because it contains some songs that may have come from CD's that she borrowed.

Scary times people.

Original story from globeandmail.com