To hear Congressman Hatch say following chills me to the bone:
“I’m interested,” Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone’s computer “may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights.”
The only way the government can legally monitor what you are doing to to seize your computer is threw a court ordered search warrant. What this man has asked for is a way for copyright holders to destroy people’s PC in order for those copyright holders to protect there copyright.
Now if it takes a search warrant for the government to monitor you then why should it be any different for a copyright holder. After all for a copyright holder to know you are abusing the copyrighted data in your possession would require that entity to monitor what you are doing.
I suppose when you are on the net doing things you should not be doing your fair game as the information could be collected against a whole broad group of people and then grouped together as offenders and attacked. But what happens when they take it a step further and actually prob a PC or enable software or copyrighted information to call home and inform the owner how many times it has been read and copied. Then after what could be a predetermined time self destruct the pc and the data within. Scary stuff coming form a legislature. [Ars Technica] [Washington Post]
I recommend everyone read the Ars Technica piece first and associated links then the Washington Post.