ACTA to destroy your laptops and ipods

[Gulkeeva]

http://www.dailytech.com/Canadian+Polit ... e11885.htm

Talk about invasion of privacy... if they don't like you they can just slap you with a fine/jail time and destroy your laptop/phone/ipod. There is no law... on the border line!

Not like I'd ever go to canada but I thought it was interesting

[wintersquall]

this is completely fucked.

and although i will never set foot in canada either... i'm still very distraught at the other implications.

[Cephius]

Um... just a thought but how exactly will those Canadian geniuses be able to look at music on an ipod and determine if they were stolen or not?

Also are they really going to sit there, force every guy to open his laptop while they run a search on it? This sounds like one of those things that is written about but when you actually try to cross the border, the guards aren't paid enough to care.

[wintersquall]

looks like me that if they can't easily determine (which they won't) they can simply seize for later inspection or destroy the tech. why do you think it's being developed behind closed doors?

and this is being brought on by OUR government, not the canadians as much as i love blaming them.

[Norellicus]

Look closer - it applies to more than just Canada. It's a change in Customs regs in general, meaning any travel outside the US is prone to this matter...

[Avanarius]

Who seriously comes up with these ideas?

This wont even remotely have any positive results except a lot of pissed off travelers. There is no feasibly possible way to check each and everything thing they pass through customs, might as well just destroy everything.

Even so, does going through the boarder with an ipod or laptop chalk full of music have any serious detrimental effects? Shouldn't they be targeting it at it's source, or are they crying because they can't do that?

[Fhqwghads]

Fucking insane. Governments are going way too far. Every time I see some dirty hippie on here saying some bullshit like "well if you have nothing to hide then you shouldn't have a problem with this", we'll soon be able to site thousands of incidents where people have had their electronics destroyed because they had a perfectly legitimate copy of a song on it. I'll wager that there will be plenty of cases where there wasn't even anything "illegal" on a device yet it gets destroyed anyway because the border guards are incompetent. This representative government has long ago outlived its usefulness, and the big corporations who are driving it at this point (because let's face it, it's not being represented by individuals who are interested in the little guy, rather people who have been paid to cater to big business) need to GTFO.

[Mizango]

Fucking insane. Governments are going way too far. Every time I see some dirty hippie on here saying some bullshit like "well if you have nothing to hide then you shouldn't have a problem with this"

QFT. I fucking hate that argument as well, having something to hide isn't the point. Complete and utter bullshit imo.

[Beckwin]

some dirty hippie on here saying some bullshit like "well if you have nothing to hide then you shouldn't have a problem with this"

hippies don't make that argument, you're thinking of authoritarian neocons.

[Souj]

cmon guys. pirating music supports terrorism.

are YOU a terrorist?
if not, grab your guns and shoot at every computer you see.
WE WILL DEFEAT THE TERRORIST IN THEIR OWN TUBES!!

[Gwynplaine]

Fucking insane. Governments are going way too far. Every time I see some dirty hippie on here saying some bullshit like "well if you have nothing to hide then you shouldn't have a problem with this"

QFT. I fucking hate that argument as well, having something to hide isn't the point. Complete and utter bullshit imo.

Thaaannk you. I wouldn't say it's hippies though, just anyone naive.

[fantasticdan]

This isn't remotely feasible, there's no way customs dudes can just look through laptop/mp3 player/whatever and tell if your shit is legit/pirated. The amount of extra time/manpower it would even take to look through everyones electronics is ridiculous in the first place. I can't imagine this bill passing, it doesn't make any sense.

[Correction]

Impractical to enforce. I'm not terribly worried. I also have zero international travel plans for at least the next 3-4 years so meh.

[Demosthenes11]

you will never hear a story of this happening to anybody

The only way i can see this working is if they get people's name by the normal means they catch illegal DLers, then own them when they try and travel

[Norellicus]

Just so we're not generalizing, there are plenty of cases regarding privacy where the argument "If you have nothing to hide, why worry" completely applies, such as terror watch lists; they have every right to suspect someone, but if your hands are clean then there's no problem.

This, however, is not one of those cases. The fact that the customs officer has full jurisdiction to determine what is and is not legal, and destroy the device if he deems it necessary, crosses the line. There is NO WAY they can even begin to establish whether that ripped CD you have on your ipod (which you have a fully legal copy of sitting on your desk at home, or fuck, even purchased via itunes!) is legal or not; if this is the precedent, what is there to stop them from just destroying it all anyway?

This accomplishes nothing except to further alienate the consumer, discourage them from even buying the material, which reduces profits, which the industry will blame on those heathen pirates, and the vicious cycle repeats ad nauseum.

[Khamsin]

I can imagine a lot of people getting upset when they see the border agent crushing their ipod in their hands, and letting the debris trickle to the ground before dusting their hands off.

[wintersquall]

i can imagine myself decking him and going to jail for years.

[MisterBob]

This is one of those many stupid initiatives that never actually gets enforced. You'll probably hear about this happening to one guy on the news like 5 years from now. Don't be that one guy.

[Shade]

Hmm.

Some years ago, Canadians began paying an extra tax on all recordable media (blank CDs etc.) because of the music copyright issues. My impression was that this means that its legal for us to own/download music, just not to share it (this site says thats correct)...

Does this mean this only applies to Americans? Weird that they've gotten the Canadian government to comply with something like that. No bringing things into Canada that are illegal in America! Even if they're legal in Canada.... Either that or they plan to both tax AND break our ipods.

[Kiro]

How about just... putting your iPods and laptops into luggage? >_>

I have to go to Montreal around christmas time this year, so this is kinda unnerving to say the least because pretty much everything on my iPod was downloaded, lol. And my girlfriend has a laptop full of movies and music and w/e.

OH LAWD WE GOIN TO JAIL!