There's a difference between doing what you have to do, and being snakes in the grass. Trying to squeak their addendums into unrelated bills is bad enough (see: Works For Hire clause in the SHVA), but to take advantage of us through a rider on an antiterrorism bill? Feeding off of our collective pain, mourning, and anger? That's below low.

Not only that, Tony. They found (correctly) that antiterrorism act describes their (actual or intended) behavior as criminal, and wanted to imunize themselves from liability. They simply want "license to kill" anybody's network or computer (claiming they have a reasonable suspicion that they might harbor illegally copied copyrighted material) without being considered cyberterrorists, with impunity.

Even if they manage to sneak something as hideous as that in the present climate of eroding regard for civil liberties in the USA, they should remember that Internet is global, and US legislation is not. Resistance to RIAA and their movie industry brethern is still sporadic (e.g. sale of region-coded DVD players is illegal in Switzerland and New Zealand, IIRC), but we will see. They should read Ustinov's "Krumnagel" [1].

It seems vital that someone take decisive legal action to protect user's right to do what they want with goods they have legally purchased.

[1] American cop sees a guy running out of a jewelry store and shoots him. Turns out the guy just bought engagement rings and was catching the bus. The cop gets publicly reprimanded, internally commended. He goes for vacations to England, does the similar thing, gets life in prison. There's more than that to the novel, but you get the drift. Recommended.

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green