A witness told the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that his Los Angeles County Sheriff's intellectual property squad had observed connections between terrorism and copyright violations. Well, that alleged copyright violators had expressed sympathies for Hezbollah, or sported terrorist tats, or something like that. Declan makes the key point here:
Even though Stedman's evidence is circumstantial, his testimony comes as Congress is expected to consider new copyright legislation this year. An invocation of terrorism, the trump card of modern American politics, could ease the passage of the next major expansion of copyright powers.
Although, to be fair, one account of Stedman's testimony has the lieutenant admit that "the evidence of suspected terrorist organizations raising money through counterfeiting was largely anecdotal."
Later: Balloon Juice mocks this further, linking to the Torrent raids.
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