Obama's Laptop Police?

Mark Brady - 4/5/2009

ACTA is not a new proposal from the Obama administration. As you might expect, negotiations for ACTA began back in November 2007 when Bush was in the White House. For the background go here.

Although the news report suggests that ACTA breaks with the past by using the criminal law to enforce private intellectual property rights, that is not the case. U.S. customs have long had the powers to seize goods in violation of patent, copyright, and trademark law.

There's a serious question for those who advocate a nightwatchman state and some intellectual property rights. Why shouldn't the state use its police powers to enforce IP law and seize counterfeit goods and pirated copyright-protected works?