A Stitch in Haste

To review: Asset forfeiture is a tactic by which the government circumvents the traditional "innocent until proven guilty" maxim of justice by relabeling criminal laws as "civil laws," relabeling criminal prosecutions as "civil lawsuits," and relabeling criminal punishments as "civil judgments." All to lower the burden of proof from "beyond a reasonable doubt" to the much lower "by a preponderance of the evidence."

It's all patently unconstitutional -- an insolent violation of due process. One can see the absurdity of asset forfeiture in the laughable case names (e.g., "United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency").

And now it may be coming to the Internet:

Top Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday introduced a sweeping 69-page bill that ratchets up civil penalties for copyright infringement, boosts criminal enforcement, and even creates a new federal agency charged with bringing about a national and international copyright crackdown.
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Any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime could be seized by the Justice Department and auctioned off. The proceeds would be funneled to the agency's budget. The process is called civil asset forfeiture, and typically the owner does not need to be found guilty of a crime for his property to be taken.

The bill is the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, or PRO IP (H.R. 4279). The civil forfeiture provisions are in Section 202, amending 18 U.S.C. 2318 (which already allows the government to seize counterfeit labels, packaging and documentation).

My position is unchanged:

For a defendant to be penalized by the government -- whether you call it "punishment" or "forfeiture" -- for a purported criminal act, the government should, one would hope, be required to obtain a finding of criminal guilt (i.e., guilt beyond a reasonable doubt), either by guilty plea or conviction at trial.

To the extent the law allows otherwise, the law is a ass.

And so are those politicians who seek to expand such a law to include the Internet.