Illegal TV streamers, here's how the feds will hunt you down

[LaserWraith]

Illegal TV streamers, here's how the feds will hunt you down

When the US government decides to take down a website offering access to free TV streams over the Internet, it doesn't mess around. Newly unsealed court documents show that Brian McCarthy, the 32-year old alleged operator of Channelsurfing.net, got the complete treatment—investigators dug into his domain name registrar, his ISP, his Gmail account, his ad brokers, and the Texas driver's license database. They even sent a surveillance team to the Deer Park, Texas home where McCarthy lived with his parents.

McCarthy had his Channelsurfing.net domain name seized on February 1 as part of the controversial "In Our Sites" investigation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That program seizes domain names, often of foreign websites, without an adversarial hearing; special agents simply convince a federal judge that the domain should be seized, and it is. Domains are replaced with an ICE logo and explanation that they now belong to the US government.

The government does not appear to file follow-up charges in many of these cases, content simply to seize the domains and hope the operator goes away. That's particularly true for the foreign cases, which would be hard to prosecute in any event. But when a website offers complete access to professional US football, basketball, and hockey games along with "ultimate fighting" and pro wrestling, and when the operator of that website can be found in Texas, uses US domain name registrars, US-based e-mail, and US-based money transfer (PayPal)—he's a fat target for the feds, and one who's easy to grab....

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Pretty interesting...and might be worrisome for a few here.

 

[LaserWraith]

I have to say, I like this comment on the article:

So, we can find some dude that offered TV streams from OTA channels and sentence him to prison to ensure he'll never be a productive member of society, rather just another drain on resources. Yet, we can't stop the turmoil in the Middle East to combat rising oil prices, find Bin Laden, get our — straight in Iraq/Afghanistan, repair our spiraling economy, fix the foreclosure rates, stop the max exodus of manufacturing from the US to China, decrease our deficit and debt, or help the ever increasing jobless find a job.

Such amazing priorities we have.

While this may be a good move by the government...it needs to do a lot more than arrest citizens living at their parents' house.

 

[HeffeD]

While this may be a good move by the government...it needs to do a lot more than arrest citizens living at their parents' house.

So they shouldn't arrest people living with their parents? :wink:

 

[LaserWraith]

So they shouldn't arrest people living with their parents? :wink:

I didn't say that. :whip:

The government just needs to do a lot more. Thing is, Obama is a pretty bad president. :s

 

[Tommy]

I think it would be better if they did something about all the malware that comes out everyday. Not hunting down randoms that own a website and live with there parents but then again I bet some malware creators do live with there parents lol.