If The Feds Say Collecting Data Is Not A Search Until It Looks At Them, Is It Not Piracy Until You View The File?

from the just-saying... dept

One of the (many) governmental excuses that have been spread in an attempt to defend the NSA surveillance practice of collecting every bit of data is that just the collection isn't a "search and seizure." That is, they claim that until they actually look at the data they've collected, they haven't even triggered a 4th Amendment issue. Of course, most people find that sort of redefinition difficult to believe from just a common sense standpoint. However, security guru Tom Ritter jokingly spun this around on Twitter recently:

Hey, so according to the government, I can download movies, and it isn't piracy until I watch them, right?

Okay, so I can already hear the copyright maximalist wonks banging away at their keyboards to mention that the exclusive rights provided under copyright law include reproduction and distribution, so merely making a copy via a download could violate those two rights. And, of course, that's how the courts have seen it. But, the point he's making is actually quite reasonable. Yes, according to common sense and the basic definitions in English we all know, when the NSA hoovered up all the data about all of your communications, most normal people would think it's a search. But, now that the feds are admitting that normal English doesn't apply, and that they can hold all your data without violating any law, it seems only fair to flip that around on them. So, even if basic English says that downloading a copy likely involves potentially infringing on the reproduction right, if we just use the NSA's dictionary, clearly, copyright holders should need to also prove that the file itself was opened. Otherwise, it's as if nothing at all happened...

Just to reinforce this for the angry maximalists (assuming they read this far): this post is not actually about copyright law -- it's about the NSA's defense of surveillance. Also, learn what sarcasm means. Don't bother spewing something stupid now.

Filed Under: collecting, copyright, infringement, nsa, nsa surveillance, search, tom ritter