US Customs not just at the border anymore?

[Justin]

People are wondering what the CardDoc/smartcardtools situation is. 1st of all I have no answer. Before people start calling them scammers and liars you better do some more reading it looks like Customs has other duties now too. Read below and the smartcardtools situation makes a little more sence.

http://www.customs.treas.gov/enforcem/enforcem.htm

NATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS COORDINATION CENTER (IPR Center)

The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) is the U.S. Government's latest weapon in the fight against violations of intellectual property rights (IPR) laws. Located at the U.S. Customs Service Headquarters in Washington, DC, the IPR Center is a multi-agency center responsible for coordinating a unified U.S. Government response regarding IPR enforcement issues. Core staffing is provided by Investigative personnel from the U.S. Customs Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Particular emphasis is given to investigating major criminal organizations and those using the Internet to facilitate IPR crime.

The IPR Center’s responsibilities include:

Coordinating U.S. government domestic and international law enforcement activities involving IPR issues;


Serving as a collection point for intelligence provided by private industry, as well as a channel for law enforcement to obtain cooperation from private industry (in specific law enforcement situations);


Integrating domestic and international law enforcement intelligence with private industry information relating to IPR crime;


Disseminating IPR intelligence for appropriate investigative and tactical use;


Developing enhanced investigative, intelligence and interdiction capabilities;


Serving as a point of contact for all U.S. Government agencies, the Administration, Congress, and media outlets regarding IPR law enforcement-related issues.
If you have specific information concerning IPR crimes, please complete the IPR Center Complaint Referral Form.

You may also contact us by mail or telephone.


MAIL: U.S. Customs Service
National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Rm. 3.5A
Washington, DC 20229

PHONE: (202) 927-0810

[froggystyl]

this is the fastest i have ever seen a federal agency move less than 2 weeks to start closing them down must be new record.

[Cinemagic]

I know Josh has been around for some time and has a decent reputation. Based upon that reputation, I have sent him some of my cards. Then again, I sent Fast Eddie some cards as well :(

From his website, he did make it sound like he was doing the unlooping on site. I suppose that was a bad assumption on my part. Since he is located in the US, there should have not been any customs problem at all. While I don't feel that he had any obligation to post details, I would find it deceptive to withhold information that the cards were being sent to Canada - if indeed that's what he was doing. We have all heard of varying reports of customs seizures. I would not have sent my cards had I known that they were being sent out of the country (again, if they were).

I can always hope that this will amount to nothing. I can't see anything illegal about restoring a card to a subscribable state (not withstanding any export/import restrictions). I wish him the best and hope for a speedy and uneventful return to business as usual.

[ac4zu]

Good post Justin, I had no idea.
It's all about the money. Big business in conjunction with the government yields way too much power. No matter what country you live in.

[ed12]

click on the highlited part..
what is of CONCERN HERE,is the irc/icq/e-mail addy's
that is a HUDGE WOW...
easy to see the RAT'S comming out..:(:(
my 2% worth

[Justin]

Cinemagic,

You are missing the point.

"...Cordinating domestic and international law enforcement activities..."

The cards don't have to leave the country.

[William37]

I just read through their whole site and this is bad news for sure. I was under the impression that you southern boys had a constitution to protect you. You guys need to contact your congressmen or something these federal SS boys are going a bit far. If you read between the lines they have brought together not just the FBI and the Customs boys but also the NSA and the CIA. I would send your Congress people the url and also some notes on what you think it means to your Rights and Freedoms. This new agency boasts the power to go anywhere(CIA,NSA) and Domestic(Customs,FBI) They also included software as a example which is just plain bad news.

[Plabuddi]

Originally posted by Justin
Cinemagic,

You are missing the point.

"...Cordinating domestic and international law enforcement activities..."

The cards don't have to leave the country.




justin if you read this much to find this you must have seen that the ipr is part of us customs if you go to thier site and search for ipr all you get is abunch of stuff about imports imports imports............................

--copied from a search of the us customs site------------------------------------------------------------------------------

U.S. CUSTOMS & Protection of INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

------------------------------------------------------------

Contents:

What is an intellectual property right??

Broadly defined, it is the exclusive ownership of an original product of the thought processes. The Federal Government registers four broad categories of intellectual property:

Patents
Trademarks
Copyrights, and
Mask Works

[Plabuddi]

only laws they can Cordinate is laws pertaining to an import violation wheither it be trademark violation.copyright violation,,,regardless what the violation it has to involve imports....there domestic rights only pertain those violations which involve importing...just search alittle more on there site for "IPR"

[Justin]

Read the current rash of Press Releases DTV's programming is defined as as exactly that... intellectual property

The software on the card is copyrighted.

Advertising the repair of Directv access cards is a trademark infringement.

IPR is part of US Customs which is part of US treasury
So is the Secret Service.

Who shows up on these raids? Customs, FBI, Secret Service

The 1st time people heard the Secret Service was going on raids they were surprised too.

Don't try and pigeonhole Customs meaning always imports,

Just ask the Eurocard dealers that got busted.
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/smartcard.htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/kennedyl.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/RiveraPlea.htm





[Edited by Justin on May 18th, 2001 at 01:25 AM]

[mex]

while this is all very interesting, i don't see the importance to be completely honest. an unmarked police car is an unmarked police car. what is my point? you ain't gonna' see them coming anyway. it's not like looking out the rear window of your car for red and blue lights. they're going to be up your ass before you know it. if the people who were supposedly at josh's were customs then you can always attribute that to the fact that he surely had customers in canada. or he was sending his cards to canada for cleaning. i suspected that he was sending his cards up there but now it seems more evident.

just my opinion. i have dealt with josh so please don't flame me. just an opinion.

mex

[Plabuddi]

Mex no one should flame you for that......Justin yea i see what u meen im still reading though and aint ready to except this as fact yet lol

[William37]

You guys should have voted for Gore. As an ex Publisher I can relate for the need to enforce the IPR but there needs to be a line drawn on who is going to enforce the issue and to what extent it will be enforced. Intenational law already enforces most of the things that these guys have decided to focus on. Giving any of these agencies such broad powers will only cause some major infringements on the rights of the common people.

[To The Real King!!]

Hi Justin,

Frankly I cannot agree with you that cleaning cards is an infringement of copyright law.

What you are saying in effect that if I erase my windows floppy diskettes that I infringe copyright. Or if I copy the CD back to my eraqsed Windows floppies that that is also an infringement. This is not the case. If you return a card back to virgin status by cleaning it, that is in no way and infringement. In order to infringe copyright you have to USE the copyrighted program for a purpose that it was not intended by altering it and using their copyrighted program for part of YOUR system. Returning it to the way it was is NOT an infringement at all technically. But will NDS attack yoiu. OF COARSE they will. BUT NOT for COPYRIGHT, rather for assisting with signal theft.

A similar example of how NOT to infringe copyright in a basic input output system (BIOS as Phoenix and many others such as Award did to the IBM BIOS), is to accomplish the exact same functions or things (run a computer, allow diskette writes, hard disk writes, serial communication, parallel printing and all the other functions of the IBM computer) BY SIMPLY USING DIFFERENT CODE TO DO THAT JOB. There is nothing (other than NDS proclamations) that disallow a person from programming a DSS card in a totally DIFFERENT way so that it does NOT infringe copyright. You cannot do that for use within the USA as then it would infringe OTHER laws but there is no problem doing that in Canada or many other countries where DTV are not authorized to sell their signal. Their card which YOU buy and thus own is NOT sacrosanct even though they try to create that impression with their BS about owning the card, it does NOT FLY IN COURTS. Under Canadian property laws they DO NOT own the card at all no matter what is printed on it.

All the printing does ANYWHERE is cause a "prime facie" case (a case at first blush) that the cards are stolen becaquse they are seemingly theirs at first blush. Once you get into court and present invoices and present civil law experts who can testify about PROPERTY LAWS, that bullcrap goes right out the window.

Many parts of the DSS card cannot be copyrighted and other parts are. But those functions can be accomplished through OTHER code that can pass muster in NOT being an infringement of copyright. Cleaning a card certainly qualifies and is NOT a copyright infringement. But if they can show that you cleaned for the purpose of having someone else PROGRAM the card (an H-Card for example can no longer be used for a sub) then they may get you for the signal theft law OF that is against the law where you are. Unless THAT is not illegal such as in CANADA.

Notice that the US law talks about importing a device or exporting a device. These are things that CAN be done from within the USA and they may be illegal there. In Canada programming a DTV card or possessing it is NOT illegal while for the person importing it into the USA why he may be breaking some law THERE But the CANADIAN breaks no law.

So its very strange and doing the same things on different sides of the border have far different consequences. DTV cannot get their mind around the fact that it is not illegal to DECRYPT the DTV signal here whether you pay for it or not. That really bothers them. So they are trying hard to have US agencies TRY to make it an offence but as long as it is NOT against the law here, Canadian courts will rule exactly as they have and acquit defendants who do that. Pretty soon it will be VERY hard to even bother people doing this and they will NOT be able to do that lest THEY be sued by the people so bothered. Many suits are close to being launched against law enforcement and individual officers here in Canada for breaching the law in seizing Canadians for this purported crime that at least 20 courts have now said id NOT against any Canadian law here. Fortunately although the USA and its Government would like to RULE the world and apply US law in other countries, that will never happen in Canada until our government changes the law to match US law. That cannot be done retroactively and it probably cannot be done at ALL until US vendors like DTV become lawful distributors here. Once Canadians can BUY it and are NOT prevented from viewing it, then the situation changes and Canadians DO NOT have to decode it without payment. Nor would they then be allowed to.

What is NOT understood now is that a Canadian who is willing, ready and able to pay DTV for their signal CANNOT DO SO BECAUSE of the fact that DTV are not an authorized vendor (lawful distributor) here. If they were then that would change the whole equation. So for now it's "UP YOURS" DTV as it is NOT against Canadian law TO DECODE YOUR SIGNAL IN CANADA WHERE it is considered a TROW away and has no commercial value. Maybe someday but not today for SURE.

So DTV, forget pusing everyone and bullying your corporate weight around, you wont make ANY headway in Canada and you may find out that the Canadian government is fed up with your BEATING them and CHEATING THEM out of the 5% production fees, the PST (provincial Sales Tax) the GST (goods and services taxes) and ultimately the Income taxes that YOU DO NOT pay to the Government here for all thiose sales you make to Canadians (and the catch part) that you DELIVER HERE (smuggling your signal across the border to deliver it to my home). That argument, that you KNOW exactly what you are delivering when you smuggle it in here NOT declaring it to Canadian Customs, may just TOAST your ass as it is a very persuasive one in the courts. You see we and the MANY grey MARKET VENDORS WHO ARE CANADIANS you ALWAYS knew were doing that may just testify against YOU in court about the special telephone lines you installed for them and the thousands of Canadian subscriptions that you DID NOT cancel when you cancelled out the distributors so that you did not have to pay them their ongoing commissions. That is more that illegal its a FRAUD perpetrated apon MANY BIG Canadian dealers most of whom are ready, willing and able and ANXIOUS to testify AGAINST you in a Canadian court of law. You see they dont much like the way you screwed them out of future commissions yet NEVER cancelled the thousands of Canadians who were their customers EXCLUSIVELY. When you cancelled MR. X in Kitchener but retain his customer base who are ALL Canadians,do you think he will take that lieing down. Not on your life you gonifs. There will be serious reprecussions and they are very close.

Copyright infringement indeed :)

There are a LOT more serious issues here that that dear Dave.

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Thanks & Good Luck,

To The REAL King!!
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