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Comment by larrik | Hacker News Reader

I'm thrilled that Mozilla didn't give in to their demands (yet).

I'm confused as why the HN headline says "MediaaFire" while the linked article and add-on are "MafiaaFire", though. UPDATE: It was a mistake and was fixed.

Oh, and it's completely ridiculous that DHS is enforcing IP. I mean, what a completely inappropriate and wasteful use of that department.

Edit: Did a Google search for "MediaaFire" which brought up nothing relevant. It DID show this posting, though, which I find to be amazing (It's only existed for 15 minutes.)

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> it's completely ridiculous that DHS is enforcing IP

The Secret Service was created by Lincoln to combat an extremely high rate of counterfeiting currency[1]. When the Department of Homeland Security was created, the Secret Service became part of that department.

I'm sure you will be happy to know that the Secret Service also provides protection for "important" citizens traveling abroad. They also investigate cases involving child pornography and various types of fraud.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service#Ea...

Defending currency is NOT anything like defending civil IP. It's not even covered by the same laws, for starters.

Bureaucracies are grown, not designed.

They also rarely stop growing.

"Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." -- Oscar Wilde

That looks like a paraphrasing of Parkinson's Law[0]

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law

Sometimes they grow by themselves, not unlike a cancer.

For example, just found out not too long ago that TVA* still exists!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority

To me that is a prime example of a self perpetuating bureaucracy. It is like a self-aware organ of a larger organism that refuses to die and does all it can to fight back and stay alive.

* For those who are wondering this is the Tennessee Valley Authority. Which was created during the Great Depression to help electrify the South. The South has pretty much been electrified but TVA still keeps on chugging along 80 years later.

It's a government chartered corporation. Like Fannie Mae or the Post Office. I was surprised to also found out they still existed when I got a call for a contracting gig with them. I believe the second sentence out my mouth after the introduction was, "I didn't know you guys were still here!". But it makes sense. It's not like all those dams, powerplants, and electrical lines continue to take care of themself once the installation is done.

Unlike the governments law enforcement apparatus, TVA still works in the domain they were deployed for, managing water and electricity in the areas around Tennessee.

While I agree with you, it is interesting to note that ACTA originally started out as an anti-counterfeiting agreement. But then again, counterfeiting currency might still be under different laws from counterfeiting designer jeans.

Homeland Security is not one department — it's an umbrella for several previously unrelated departments, some of which (e.g. Customs) are involved in IP enforcement.

The very fact that ICE is involved in IP enforcement is itself a pretty shameful anachronism. If the US Government wants to have a department that acts as the enforcement arm of the content industry's copyright battles, then it should create a division whose primary duties are not "chasing down Mexicans". The link between bootlegging and the borders hasn't been germaine in over a decade, and asking ICE to be responsible for enforcement is almost guaranteed to cause the sorts of issues we've seen so far with regards to inappropriate domain name seizures and illegal requests made of organizations like Mozilla.

I don't personally believe that the gov't has any business acting as a uniformed proxy for the RIAA and MPAA, but if they're going to take on that role they need to create an organization with the mandate to do so, a clear mission statement, and transparent statements and limitations of power. They need to be independent of the content industry, and operate within well-defined boundaries if they are to have any legitimacy.

Actually, "chasing down Mexicans" was not one of the department's duties until very recently. For a long time, Customs was almost exclusively concerned with illegal imports and counterfeiting. It was only within the last 10 years that Customs got merged with the Immigration & Naturalization Service as part of Homeland Security's organization.

Chasing down mexicans could be either Border Patrol or ICE, depending on whether said mexicans are near the border or are deeper in the interior of the country.

> if they're going to take on that role they need to create an organization with the mandate to do so, a clear mission statement, and transparent statements and limitations of power.

I guess the FBI has too many cumbersome rules to be trusted with criminal investigation.

Agree that this is a gross abuse of power. For one thing, isn't DHS' job protecting the physical safety of the US home soil?

If so, what does IP law have to do with this? Don't they have terrorists to catch, luggage to search, and people to view naked through a machine?

I'm of the opinion that the DHS is a wholly unnecessary entity that is one of the worst legacies of 9/11. They don't do anything that the FBI/CIA wasn't already able to do before. Just another bureaucracy to waste our money and pervert our freedoms.

I just corrected the headline, don't know how I got "MediaaFire". Thanks.

Last I heard it was called MafiaaFire as an irony to MPAA and ICE.

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