"Buy OEM or the Terrorists Win"

by Jordan Yerman | April 3, 2008 at 05:46 am

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The Attorney General of the US has made a frankly bizarre claim that terrorist organizations are financing their operations via software piracy. This may have been somewhat plausible if he had a shred of proof, but he doesn't, so it isn't. Why would someone make up a story like this? Perhaps to push through a piece of pet legislation. Long story short, Michael Mukasey wants us to believe that we can fight terrorism by passing his controversial anti-piracy bill.

In a talk last week before at the Tech Museum of Innovation, Mukasey used his best fearmongering tactics to link software piracy to terrorists. In his speech, which you can read in its entirety here, he told the group:

Criminal syndicates, and in some cases even terrorist groups, view IP crime as a lucrative business, and see it as a low-risk way to fund other activities.

Mukasey went on to cite numerous cases in which the Justice Department has arrested those who pirate software, and in which the department has cooperated with other countries in investigations. He mentioned arrests in Florida, investigations in China, and warned about the Russian mob being involved in selling pirated software.

In not a single instance did Mukasey include a link to terrorism. Not one. You can be sure that if there were any links, Mukasey would make sure to get them on the nightly news.

So why is Mukasey trying to convince people there's a link between software piracy and terrorism, even though one doesn't exist? To force Congress to pass controversial intellectual property (IP) legislation that would increase IP penalties, increase police power, set up a new agency to investigate IP theft, and more.