DHS Says Agent 'Hunches' Trump Citizens' Rights In Searching Your Computer At The Border

from the burns-through-a-handful-of-black-toner-cartridges-as-well dept

The Dept. of Homeland Security has finally coughed up its Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Impact Assessment of its suspicionless electronic device searches performed at border crossings by ICE and CBP agents. It's been a long time coming.

The DHS announced it would take a look at this policy's impact on civil liberties "within 120 days." That was back in 2009. The report was released (but not publically) in December of 2011. In February of this year, it finally published a two-page executive summary of its findings for the public's perusal. There wasn't much contained in the release, but what was included was disturbing enough. In its own estimation, the DHS felt it complied with the Fourth Amendment but went on to state that imposing a "reasonable suspicion" requirement for device searches would be "operationally harmful" without any "concomitant civil liberties benefit." In other words, the public wouldn't be appreciably better off if these searches didn't violate anyone's rights, but the DHS felt its agencies would be worse off if forced to respect them.

The actual report has finally been pried loose, thanks to a FOIA request by the ACLU. There's a lot of information available in the report, including an explanation as to why the agency feels a "reasonable suspicion" threshold is "inadvisable." This is significant, the ACLU points out, as it's the first time the government has explained why it believes suspicionless searches "enhance" security. It begins with some familiar language and expands on that thought process a bit

[A]dding a heightened [suspicion-based] threshold requirement could be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefit. First, commonplace decisions to search electronic devices might be opened to litigation challenging the reasons for the search. In addition to interfering with a carefully constructed border security system, the litigation could directly undermine national security by requiring the government to produce sensitive investigative and national security information to justify some of the most critical searches. Even a policy change entirely unenforceable by courts might be problematic; we have been presented with some noteworthy CBP and ICE success stories based on hard-to-articulate intuitions or hunches based on officer experience and judgment. Under a reasonable suspicion requirement, officers might hesitate to search an individual's device without the presence of articulable factors capable of being formally defended, despite having an intuition or hunch based on experience that justified a search.

So, a CBP/ICE agent's hunch trumps a US citizen's rights. Rather than take the chance that someone dangerous might pass through its net, the agencies would prefer to be allowed to use "I've got a bad feeling about this" as justification for digging through not just someone's laptop, but anyone's laptop. The report supports the agencies' hunch-based investigative processes with anecdotal evidence but no real data.

Any data actually produced comes from outside parties concerned about the First and Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens. The Constitution Project's recommendations for border policy reform are included with the freed documents and it concludes that suspicionless searches not only have a very low "hit rate," but that the policy itself, as it stands now without limitations, actually creates a burden for the CBP and ICE.

Moreover, requiring reasonable suspicion to conduct a search of electronic devices would focus limited law enforcement resources where they can be most effective. Suspicionless searches are not well-suited to identifying and locating contraband or illegal material, as the CBP's own data show. In 2009, for example, only about 5% of the electronic devices searched at the border were seized as a result of the search. Put differently, in the vast majority of instances involving border searches of electronic devices, the traveler has had to needlessly withstand a significant intrusion into his or her privacy for no legitimate law enforcement purpose.

This hit rate puts it right in the neighborhood of another rights-violating law enforcement tactic -- NYC's stop-and-frisk program. Lots of busywork but very little in the way of results.

But this report is almost more about what it doesn't include than what it does. If you're looking for some in-depth discussion of the DHS' views on various civil liberties, you're going to be disappointed. Here's what greets readers when they reach the "Fourth Amendment" section.


This continues for four straight pages. First Amendment? A page and a half of redacted text before this concluding sentence:

The laptop border searches in the ICE and CBP policies do not violate travelers' First Amendment rights as defined by the courts.

Interesting. Of course, the involved agencies don't really seem too concerned about any definitions provided by any court. If they did, they might have paid a bit more attention to a Supreme Court decision dealing directly with the Fourth Amendment.

Even more problematic is the government's claim that the "hard-to-articulate" hunch of a border agent is enough for the government to scrounge around through our personal photos, medical and financial records, email, and whatever other sensitive information may be stored on our laptops and phones... As the Supreme Court explained in Terry v. Ohio, if law enforcement agents are allowed to intrude upon people's rights "based on nothing more substantial than inarticulate hunches," then "the protections of the Fourth Amendment would evaporate, and the people would be ‘secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects,' only in the discretion of the [government]."

This evaporation process seems to be nearly complete in the so-called "Constitution-free zone" and things continue to get noticeably drier elsewhere. The DHS clearly believes that citizens' Constitutional rights end where its jurisdiction begins -- and unfortunately at this point in time, that's pretty much everywhere.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, border searches, homeland security, hunches, ice, laptops

US Government Settles Lawsuit Over Seizure Of Laptop Of Bradley Manning's Friend

from the a-bit-late... dept

The US government's intimidation of anyone even remotely connected to Wikileaks is somewhat insane. The difficulty that former Wikileaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum has every time he crosses the border is well documented. Two years ago, we noted that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had seized David House's laptop as he re-entered the country from a vacation. House has been a friend and supporter of Bradley Manning, and the feds kept his laptop for 49 days, and only returned it after the ACLU sent a sternly worded letter. House then sued the government. The government's defense was basically "we're the US fucking government and we can do what we want with your laptops at the border" (slight paraphrase). The court, however, didn't quite see it that way, and noted that politically motivated searches and seizures may be unconstitutional, under the First Amendment. This is important, because courts have let DHS/ICE ignore the 4th Amendment at the border, but here the court said that intimidating House and others could violate their 1st Amendment rights to freedom of association.

It's taken some time since then, but the feds have now agreed to settle the case, and more or less given in to all of the demands from House and the ACLU:

In a settlement reached with human rights activist David House, the government has agreed to destroy all data it obtained from his laptop and other electronics when he entered the U.S. after a vacation, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Massachusetts announced today. House, who was then working with the Bradley Manning Support Network, an organization created to raise funds for the legal defense of the soldier who has admitted to leaking material to WikiLeaks, charged in a lawsuit that the seizure violated his Fourth Amendment rights by subjecting him to unreasonable search and seizure, and violated his First Amendment right to freedom of association.

More specifically:

Under the terms of the settlement, the government agreed to destroy all remaining data copied from House’s devices. The government will also hand over numerous documents, including reports describing Army CID’s inspection of House’s data as well as the DHS “Lookout” telling agents to stop House as he entered the country. The government further agreed to release reports on DHS agents’ questioning of House, which included inquiries about whether he knew anything about Manning giving classified information to WikiLeaks.

Some will argue that this is all way too late -- after all, the feds had that data for years, and the basic intimidation impact is still in place. However, hopefully this stops Homeland Security and ICE from continuing these kinds of politically motivated attacks.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, bradley manning, constitution, david house, dhs, ice, laptops, seizing laptops

Homeland Security's ICE Group Cuts Off Dwolla Bitcoin Transfers

from the no-explanation dept

Update: The DHS has released a copy of the warrant, which claims probable cause to believe that Mt. Gox is engaging in money transmitting without a license.

We've discussed in the past how the government seems very skeptical of Bitcoin, and now it may be doing something about it. As a whole bunch of you have sent in, ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement), a division of Homeland Security -- best known around here for its cowboy attitude towards censoring websites with no basis -- has cut off Dwolla transfers to Mt. Gox, the biggest Bitcoin exchange, preventing Dwolla from processing any Bitcoin transfers. According to Declan McCullagh at News.com:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed it has initiated legal action that prompted the Dwolla payment service to stop processing bitcoin transactions.

Nicole Navas, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed the legal action to CNET this afternoon.

Chris Coyne, from Ok Cupid, posted a screenshot of an email from Dwolla claiming that ICE had "seized" the account of Mt. Gox: Mt. Gox, for its part, claims this is the first it's heard of anything:

MtGox has read on the Internet that the United States Department of Homeland Security had a court order and/or warrant issued from the United States District Court in Maryland which it served upon the Dwolla mobile payment service with respect to accounts used for trading with MtGox. We take this information seriously. However, as of this time we have not been provided with a copy of the court order and/or warrant, and do not know its scope and/or the reasons for its issuance. MtGox is investigating and will provide further reports when additional information becomes known.

I would imagine there will be a lot more to this story, but for the moment details are scarce.

Filed Under: bitcoin, homeland security, ice
Companies: dwolla, mt gox

9th Circuit Appeals Court: 4th Amendment Applies At The Border; Also: Password Protected Files Shouldn't Arouse Suspicion

from the well-that's-a-surprise dept

Here's a surprise ruling. For many years we've written about how troubling it is that Homeland Security agents are able to search the contents of electronic devices, such as computers and phones at the border, without any reason. The 4th Amendment only allows reasonable searches, usually with a warrant. But the general argument has long been that, when you're at the border, you're not in the country and the 4th Amendment doesn't apply. This rule has been stretched at times, including the ability to take your computer and devices into the country and search it there, while still considering it a "border search," for which the lower standards apply. Just about a month ago, we noted that Homeland Security saw no reason to change this policy.

Well, now they might have to.

In a somewhat surprising 9th Circuit ruling (en banc, or in front of the entire set of judges), the court ruled that the 4th Amendment does apply at the border, that agents do need to recognize there's an expectation of privacy, and cannot do a search without reason. Furthermore, they noted that merely encrypting a file with a password is not enough to trigger suspicion. This is a huge ruling in favor of privacy rights.

The ruling is pretty careful to strike the right balance on the issues. It notes that a cursory review at the border is reasonable:

Officer Alvarado turned on the devices and opened and viewed image files while the Cottermans waited to enter the country. It was, in principle, akin to the search in Seljan, where we concluded that a suspicionless cursory scan of a package in international transit was not unreasonable.

But going deeper raises more questions. Looking stuff over, no problem. Performing a forensic analysis? That goes too far and triggers the 4th Amendment. They note that the location of the search is meaningless to this analysis (the actual search happened 170 miles inside the country after the laptop was sent by border agents to somewhere else for analysis). So it's still a border search, but that border search requires a 4th Amendment analysis, according to the court.

It is the comprehensive and intrusive nature of a forensic examination—not the location of the examination—that is the key factor triggering the requirement of reasonable suspicion here....

Notwithstanding a traveler’s diminished expectation of privacy at the border, the search is still measured against the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement, which considers the nature and scope of the search. Significantly, the Supreme Court has recognized that the “dignity and privacy interests of the person being searched” at the border will on occasion demand “some level of suspicion in the case of highly intrusive searches of the person.” Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. at 152. Likewise, the Court has explained that “some searches of property are so destructive,” “particularly offensive,” or overly intrusive in the manner in which they are carried out as to require particularized suspicion. Id. at 152, 154 n.2, 155–56; Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. at 541. The Court has never defined the precise dimensions of a reasonable border search, instead pointing to the necessity of a case-by-case analysis....

For years, we've repeated two key arguments for why border searches of laptops and other devices should be illegal.

• You mostly store everything on your laptop. So, unlike a suitcase that you're bringing with you, it's the opposite. You might specifically choose what to exclude, but you don't really choose what to include.
• The reason you bring the contents on your laptop over the border is because you're bringing your laptop over the border. If you wanted the content of your laptop to go over the border you'd just send it using the internet. There are no "border guards" on the internet itself, so content flows mostly freely across international boundaries. Thus if anyone wants to get certain content into a country via the internet, they're not doing it by entering that country through border control.

We'd never seen a court even seem to acknowledge that content on devices is different than contents in a suitcase... until now. One interesting tidbit, is that they specifically note that "secure in their papers" part of the 4th Amendment, while noting that what's on your device is often like your personal "papers."

The amount of private information carried by international travelers was traditionally circumscribed by the size of the traveler’s luggage or automobile. That is no longer the case. Electronic devices are capable of storing warehouses full of information. The average 400-gigabyte laptop hard drive can store over 200 million pages—the equivalent of five floors of a typical academic library.... Even a car full of packed suitcases with sensitive documents cannot hold a candle to the sheer, and ever-increasing, capacity of digital storage.

The nature of the contents of electronic devices differs from that of luggage as well. Laptop computers, iPads and the like are simultaneously offices and personal diaries. They contain the most intimate details of our lives: financial records, confidential business documents, medical records and private emails. This type of material implicates the Fourth Amendment’s specific guarantee of the people’s right to be secure in their “papers.”.... The express listing of papers “reflects the Founders’ deep concern with safeguarding the privacy of thoughts and ideas—what we might call freedom of conscience—from invasion by the government.”... These records are expected to be kept private and this expectation is “one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’”

Electronic devices often retain sensitive and confidential information far beyond the perceived point of erasure, notably in the form of browsing histories and records of deleted files. This quality makes it impractical, if not impossible, for individuals to make meaningful decisions regarding what digital content to expose to the scrutiny that accompanies international travel. A person’s digital life ought not be hijacked simply by crossing a border. When packing traditional luggage, one is accustomed to deciding what papers to take and what to leave behind. When carrying a laptop, tablet or other device, however, removing files unnecessary to an impending trip is an impractical solution given the volume and often intermingled nature of the files. It is also a time-consuming task that may not even effectively erase the files.

Huh. That last paragraph sounds a lot like my argument above. Very cool to see a court actually recognize this basic point. Considering it had been ignored for so long, I'd almost given up hope.

In this case, they also noted that part of the forensic analysis of the computer involved restoring deleted files, and note:

It is as if a search of a person’s suitcase could reveal not only what the bag contained on the current trip, but everything it had ever carried.

The court is equally worried about the fact that the device is often just a portal to cloud based services, and how a search of a device might lead to access to that data, even if it's been snug and secure "in the cloud" the whole time, rather than crossing the border:

With the ubiquity of cloud computing, the government’s reach into private data becomes even more problematic.12 In the “cloud,” a user’s data, including the same kind of highly sensitive data one would have in “papers” at home, is held on remote servers rather than on the device itself. The digital device is a conduit to retrieving information from the cloud, akin to the key to a safe deposit box. Notably, although the virtual “safe deposit box” does not itself cross the border, it may appear as a seamless part of the digital device when presented at the border. With access to the cloud through forensic examination, a traveler’s cache is just a click away from the government.

Of course, this doesn't mean that no searches can ever take place. Instead, they just need to be "reasonable" and live up to the standards of the 4th Amendment. In fact, in this very case they still say that there was "reasonable suspicion to conduct the initial search, and that appears like it may be a legitimate claim (the guy had a previous conviction for child molestation, which the agents believed -- incorrectly, but they believed it at the time -- was for child porn). But for everyone else, where there is no reasonable suspicion, our 4th Amendment protections just got stronger (at least if you're entering the country in an area covered by the 9th Circuit (covering California, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Idaho and Montana).

There's one other important part of the ruling as well. In discussing the "reasonable suspicion" the court agrees it was there because of the prior conviction, as well as the fact that guy was travelling from Mexico which is "a country associated with sex tourism." However, the government also argued that password protected files gave them reasonable suspicion, and thankfully the court slaps them down:

To these factors, the government adds another—the existence of password-protected files on Cotterman’s computer. We are reluctant to place much weight on this factor because it is commonplace for business travelers, casual computer users, students and others to password protect their files. Law enforcement “cannot rely solely on factors that would apply to many law-abiding citizens,” ... and password protection is ubiquitous. National standards require that users of mobile electronic devices password protect their files.... Computer users are routinely advised—and in some cases, required by employers—to protect their files when traveling overseas....

There are some dissenting opinions, basically suggesting that this upturns more settled law, but the majority ruling makes a strong case for why the Supreme Court has actually not really directly answered this question before, but has tiptoed carefully around it. Still, it seems likely that there will be an appeal to the Supreme Court, so this probably isn't over yet. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will uphold this important ruling, and recognize that we don't give up our 4th Amendment rights at the border.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, border search, border searches, computers, dhs, ice, passwords, privacy, reasonable suspicion

As Expected, ICE Seizes 313 Websites In Its Role As The NFL's Private Police Force

from the government-overreach dept

Earlier this week, we predicted that either today or tomorrow, we'd hear about ICE and the DOJ once again seizing a bunch of websites... and here it is. This morning, ICE announced that it had seized another 313 websites based on its highly questionable legal theory concerning taking down websites without any adversarial hearing. Of course, lately it's moved away from doing site seizures concerning websites that deal with content/copyright issues, and focused instead on those it claims are selling counterfeit merchandise. Along those lines, ICE announced that it arrested a few people with counterfeit Super Bowl merchandise.

Of course, this is all for show. Waiting until just a couple days before the Super Bowl is pretty ridiculous, since if people were going to buy merch, they already did so. This is just ICE, once again, generating headlines for the corporations it seems to think it represents. As is his usual MO, ICE boss John Morton talked up just how "successful" this operation was, based on his own metrics, claiming "This just takes good old-fashioned police work, people getting out on the streets."

Funny, then, that he completely leaves out the parts where they seized legitimate merchandise and hassled the seller. It appears that, sometimes, ICE just isn't very good at "good old-fashioned police work." And that's especially true when it seems to be taking orders from big companies, rather than the public it is supposed to be protecting.

Filed Under: counterfeiting, dhs, doj, domain seizures, homeland security, ice, merchandise, super bowl, trademark
Companies: nfl

Feds Seize Legit 49ers Merchandise, But Apparently Unconcerned About Actual Fraud In Ticket Sales

from the priorities dept

Sometime in the next few days -- perhaps Thursday or Friday -- expect that ICE and the DOJ will announce excitedly how they've seized another hundred or so websites that they'll claim were selling counterfeit NFL merchandise -- and maybe a couple sites that were planning to embed streams of the game. It's become a Super Bowl Weekend tradition because the feds have nothing better to do, apparently. Two local stories that came out this morning, however, suggest that the feds' priorities are out of whack. According to a CBS morning radio report in San Francisco, Homeland Security raided a guy selling 49ers merchandise on the street corner at a gas station. They told him that they knew he was selling counterfeit material and seized it... only to find out soon after that the merchandise was legit. Way to do your research, Homeland Security: Meanwhile, at the same time, there was actual fraud going on, as someone who spent $5,900 on Superbowl tickets on Craigslist was scammed and sent a note that just said "Goo Ravens!!! LOL" instead. Amazingly, the guy who sent that put a return address on the package and had spoken to the buyers a bunch on the phone. So you would think that, perhaps instead of swooping down on legitimate vendors selling legitimate goods, perhaps law enforcement could be out there arresting folks like this scammer instead. But, I guess that kind of stuff isn't as important to big companies like the NFL.

Filed Under: 49ers, counterfeits, dhs, ice, scalping, scams, super bowl

Camming Group Leader Sentenced To 5 Years; Barred From Owning 'Any Device' That Can Infringe Copyrights After Release

from the how's-that-going-to-work dept

The DOJ triumphantly announced the five year sentence handed down to Jeremiah Perkins, who was named as the "leader" of IMAGiNE, a group that coordinated the recording of movies in theaters for upload to the internet. The DOJ and ICE arrested many of those involved in the group last year, and was able to convince them to do plea deals over "conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement." It's a bit of a stretch to claim their actions met the requirements of "criminal" copyright infringement, but they did get some money for their actions, and that tripped the wire. I don't have an issue with them getting in trouble for their actions, which were pretty blatant infringement, though I'll say that the punishment of five years in jail seems ridiculously excessive when this one group's actual impact on movie piracy was non-notable. So many leaks are internal leaks, rather than cams -- and even if they take down this one group, it's not like it stopped any movies from showing up online quickly. And, of course, none of this does anything to make people buy. So I fail to see the value in spending taxpayer money going after these people, and then paying for their prison sentence at a time when our prisons are overcrowded.

But the issue that gets me about this is this bit, highlighted by TorrentFreak:

After his imprisonment ends Perkins will be subjected to a further three years of supervised release and will be banned from possessing “any electronic device with the capability or reproducing and distributing copies of copyrighted materials.”

That's basically pretty much any electronic device these days. Computer, phone, camera, tablet. Anything that can record audio or video or take a picture has that capability. Five years from now, it's likely to include many more commonly used devices as well. That seems ridiculously excessive. Especially given that devices that can infringe on copyrights also do a ton of legitimate and important things, to say that he can't possess any such device seems ridiculously limiting. The MPAA, who pushed this prosecution (which, again, was led by Neil MacBride -- the former industry anti-piracy enforcer -- who now does the same job for the government and rarely misses an opportunity to support his former colleagues), don't see any problem with completely taking away all devices that can infringe on copyright from someone, but that's because they still don't realize how central to culture and society such devices have become these days.

Filed Under: copyright, criminal copyright, doj, ice, imagine, jeremiah perkins, restrictions, sentencing

Richard O'Dwyer Cuts Deal To Avoid Extradition To The US

from the sad-that-it-had-to-come-to-this,-but-good-that-it's-over dept

It appears that the ridiculous saga of the US's baseless criminal case against Richard O'Dwyer is now ending, as O'Dwyer has effectively cut a deal to pay a small sum in exchange for avoiding extradition and trial in the US. If you don't recall, O'Dwyer, a computer science student, ran TVshack.net, one of the sites that ICE and the DOJ seized during one of their many questionable censorship days, in which they seize domain names, in direct conflict with what the law requires. Then they went the extra step of seeking to extradite O'Dwyer to face criminal charges in the US. In this case, it was doubly bizarre, because O'Dwyer, a UK citizen, was running a site that was nearly identical to some other sites that had been found to be perfectly legal in the UK -- and one of the pre-requisites for a criminal copyright charge is that the person needs to be willfully violating the law. Given that other comparable sites were found to be legal, it's difficult to see how US officials could meet that bar. There was also the fact that the US was, as it had attempted in the Rojadirecta case, trying to create a completely made up theory of criminal copyright liability for secondary infringement. In fact, as we noted in other cases, US courts have found that what TVshack was doing was not infringement.

The O'Dwyer case continued to get plenty of attention, with widespread protests in the UK, especially after UK officials approved his extradition to the US. Now, however, the case will be wrapped up under what's known as "deferred prosecution" in which O'Dwyer will pay a "small sum" and the case will be concluded. You can see why O'Dwyer would do this deal after a year and a half of fighting the extradition. It's also not too surprising that the DOJ would agree to such a deal, given how it ran from other similar cases once it realized that there was competent legal help absolutely decimating its ridiculous legal theories. The DOJ had to realize that it was likely to lose badly even if O'Dwyer was extradited -- so now they get to save face and pretend that O'Dwyer paying a small sum is a form of "victory."

It's good that the case is over and that O'Dwyer can get on with his life, though it's ridiculous that any part of this case ever happened.

Filed Under: copyright, doj, domain seizures, extradition, ice, richard o'dwyer
Companies: tvshack

Apparently All That Stuff About Needing SOPA To Go After Foreign Sites Was Bogus

from the just-saying dept

Tim covered the story of ICE doing its annual censorship binge in seizing domain names without adversarial hearings (as we still believe is required under the law). However, there were a couple of additional points worthy of a followup. First off, if you remember, one of the key reasons why we were told SOPA was needed was that for all of ICE's previous domain takedowns it was "impossible" for it to take down foreign domains. Except... as ICE's own announcement here shows that was completely untrue. It seems to have had no difficulty finding willing law enforcement partners around the globe to seize websites without any due process:

...recognizing the global nature of Internet crime, this year the IPR Center partnered with Europol, who, through its member countries, executed coordinated seizures of foreign-based top-level domains such as .eu, .be, .dk, .fr, .ro and .uk. This effort is titled Project Transatlantic and resulted in 31 domain name seizures.

"This operation is a great example of the tremendous cooperation between ICE and our international partners at the IPR Center," said ICE Director John Morton. "Our partnerships enable us to go after criminals who are duping unsuspecting shoppers all over the world.

Yeah. Apparently it's possible for ICE to censor those sites if it actually does a little work and calls up its law enforcement pals. Another example of why SOPA was never necessary in the first place.

The other issue? ICE's own release shows that ICE appears to have no understanding of the intellectual property laws it's seeking to enforce. From that release:

During this operation, federal law enforcement officers made undercover purchases of a host of products; including professional sports jerseys, DVD sets, and a variety of clothing, jewelry and luxury goods from online retailers who were suspected of selling counterfeit products. If the copyright holders confirmed that the purchased products were counterfeit or otherwise illegal, seizure orders for the domain names of the websites that sold these goods were obtained from federal magistrate judges.

Note the confusion (or ignorance) here. Counterfeits are about trademarks, not copyrights. Most of what they discuss are items covered by trademark. But then they say "if the copyright holders confirmed that the purchased products were counterfeit." Yes, there may be some copyright claims mixed in here (especially with "DVD sets"), but for the most part this is about trademark. Why say "copyright holders" unless you're either willfully misrepresenting what's happening... or ignorant of the law you're supposedly helping to enforce?

We've complained before about ICE boss John Morton's apparent deliberate conflation of copyright and counterfeits in the past -- but usually it's just lumping them together. To confuse the two here, in an official release from a government group that's enforcing the law, suggests some serious problems. ICE is either ignorant of the law it's supposedly enforcing... or maliciously misrepresenting itself. That seems like a problem.

Filed Under: copyright, dhs, domain seizures, foreign sites, ice, sopa