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Comment by wildmusings | Hacker News Reader

The US intelligence apparatus exists to protect the interests of the citizens of the United States. A foreigner who violates millions of dollars of intellectual property belonging to American citizens and companies is a threat to our interests, and also of the interests of the nearly 200 nations that participate in the global copyright regime, whose copyrights he was also violating. Foreigners on foreign soil have no rights as far as US law is concerned.

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You are right, or something resembling right, as regards Kim Dotcom in relation to the US.

But there is still something troubling here for Americans, because it means that there is an existing mechanism (and/or set of social relations) in place by which American copyright interests can turn the intelligence agencies into their servants. Once such machinery exists, it is at least as dangerous to Americans as it is to foreigners.

I am not usually in the "if you have nothing to hide..." crowd, but this isn't some kid in Minnesota who downloaded a Metallica album. This is someone who created a business enterprise to circumvent US law. This is someone who pulled in tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars from this business. For a time this business was the single biggest source of pirated content in the world. All of this was done basically in the open. If this guy was an American citizen I doubt there would have been any resistance to getting warrants for this information. The slope would have to be very slippery for it to get to the level that the average American citizen would be the target of this type of investigation.

> someone who created a business enterprise to circumvent US law

Kinda like Uber? rim shot

But I'm still kinda serious. Your whole comment works if you swtich "pirated content" for "unlicensed, unregistered taxi service"

Uber isn’t stealing the property of others. There isn’t a federal law that you must have a taxi medallion.

Owning a taxi medallion of declining value is a consequence of the market.

Having songs you have recorded, spent money marketing on be stolen? That causes financial harm to the artists.

Imagine spending 40 million to make a movie. Now have your work given away for free to anyone that wants it. That is theft.

An unlicensed “taxi” service isn’t harming the rights of innocent people. It isn’t stealing. Who are the actual victims of Uber (besides women employees?) Really nobody. If you own a taxi, nothing is stopping by you from driving with Uber. Uber isn’t stealing your car.

If you truly wanted to dig through my comment history, you would find numerous posts criticizing Uber and AirBnb for basically establishing businesses on ignoring the law. However there is still a difference between feigning ignorance of the law and turning your middle finger up at it like Kim Dotcom did.

That are a vast number of laws that are designed to enrich one party at the expense of another. They are nearly always portrayed by the captured regulators as being for the safety of the citizenry when actually they are primarily for the purpose of enriching themselves and their cronies. One could argue that it is every citizen's duty to circumvent or directly violate those laws in the interest of fairness to all citizens. One could go further and assert that supporting such laws is immoral since as a result many people lose freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom to associate or move about, have reduced access to knowledge and opportunities, and the list goes on.

The ideals behind your post are great, but can we not pretend that Kim Dotcom is Rosa Parks? There is a difference between civil disobedience in which your comment advocates and profiteering from breaking those unjust laws.

Airbnb and Uber certainly broke some laws that were only put in place to protect monopolies. I think that is good for society. But they also broke plenty of laws that were legitimately for public health and safety. I don't think the former absolve the later and I don't think it is up to you, me, Airbnb, or Uber to decide which laws fall into which buckets. That is the job of our judicial system.

I acknowledge your distinction between civil disobedience and profiteering. But a further nuance is that effective civil disobedience may in some cases require a for-profit activity in order for it to become significant. In this case I am more on the side of Kim Dotcom than the MPAA and RIAA. And that is separate from the fact that they were able to use their influence to take down Dotcom in the way they did, an armed raid on his home using scores of law enforcement.

I disagree that it is not up to each citizen to decide which laws are just or unjust. In fact I feel it is the duty of each citizen to do so and to actively work for/against laws that one considers just/unjust.

I don't think the former absolve the later and I don't think it is up to you, me, Airbnb, or Uber to decide which laws fall into which buckets. That is the job of our judicial system.

Strongly disagree. The 4th branch of the government should be called "public outcry". If corrupt laws are on the books, trusting ivy league-trained judges to fix it is foolhardy.

AirBnB and Uber didn’t make a business out of stealing other people’s property and profiting from it.

Everyone in an Uber or AirBnB transaction is a willing participant. Huge difference.

Don't forget youtube. People seem to forget the years that it was almost entirely piracy.

So what happens when a US citizen starts publishing stuff China (or Russia, or the UAE, or England, or any other state that doesn't protect free speech as we do) doesn't like?

What happens in 40 years, when the US is on much less-firm footing as de facto World Cop?

> So what happens when a US citizen starts publishing stuff China (or Russia, or the UAE, or England, or any other state that doesn't protect free speech as we do) doesn't like?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controver...

Didn't take any US precedent.

It is up to a government to protect its own citizens. There is a reason why Kit Dotcom is fighting the government of New Zealand currently and not the US government.

I think it is unrealistic to expect the US government to willingly give up one of their citizens to China or Russia over an issue of free speech anytime soon. And frankly I think it would be irrational for the average citizen to fear they would be involved in such an exchange.

Never forget Thucydides' wisdom from 2500 years ago, as true today as then and as in 2500 more years:

"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

Tying our hands today will do nothing to help us when we are the weak and someone else is the strong.

Of course, acting with moral authority extends the lifespan of leaders, because such leaders get more support than the nakedly self-interested. And thus tying your hands today does in fact put off the day when you're weak.

> Foreigners on foreign soil have no rights as far as US law is concerned.

Except for, you know, treaty rights. Which there are a lot of.

And it is indeed incorrect because the constitution and the bill of rights do apply to foreign citizens who are visiting the us. Of course there are laws which are designed to protect citizens but don't protect foreigners but they are not actually part of the constitution

> protect the interests of the citizens of the United States

Namely the RIAAA and MPAA in this particular case.

And the artists that make the content. RIAAA doesn’t actually own copyrights – artists and labels do.

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