Re: Special Forces and Special Judges

On Tue, 20 May 1997, James Love <love[_at_]cptech.org> wrote:
>
> I just returned from a Belo Horizonte meeting of the Intellectual
> Property Rights working group for the proposed FTAA (Free Trade Area
> for the Americas). The software and movie people were quite aggressive
> about the need for new "specialized intellectual property police units,
> prosecutor pools, administrative agencies, and courts," as well as
> "ex parte searches, injunctive relief" and other measures. During the
> discussions, a person who represented Microsoft and the Business
> Software Alliance (BSA) called for a "special forces" (police), special
> judges and courts, and some way for private investigators to obtain
> search warrants. This wasn't received too warmly by the Latin American
> countries. Does anyone have any pointers to these plans? Any treaty
> language in the FTAA will apply to the US as well, course. Jamie

Going way overboard it looks like to me. Are IP Star Chambers next???

Harold Federow
<hfederow[_at_]u.washington.edu> Received on Wed May 21 1997 - 15:47:30 GMT