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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (23166)	8/19/2001 2:29:30 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 82486

From one of the messages on one of the links in that post -Typical FBI behavior. Tom Wyrick <twyrick@visto.com> Aug 19, 2001 Rating: Ok While I was very upset and disappointed with our law enforcement officials after reading this story, it hardly surprises me. You see, I had my own run-in with the FBI, and it just ended a few months ago. I was operating a computer bulletin board system as a hobby, like many people did in the 1980's and 90's. Mine got extremely popular over the years, to the point where I had to set up 4 phone lines plus an ISDN connection to the Internet to handle all of the callers. As you can imagine, this got to be quite expensive - and after 10 years or so, I really wasn't willing to keep shelling out all the money for the BBS operation myself. Therefore, I started a voluntary donation system - and even offered to mail out a recordable CD disc on a quarterly basis to those who donated at least $20 a month. This disc contained a selection of whatever software was uploaded during that quarter of the year. Everything was going great until someone at the FBI got the idea that I was making "millions of dollars" selling pirated software through the BBS. While I was at work, they sent a team of close to 10 agents to my parent's home (guns drawn and everything) to search the residence and seize all computer equipment. After reviewing some of their supposed evidence, it appeared that they got somebody to sign onto my BBS and print out pages of software download listings. They didn't seem to be very knowledgeable about what was actually copyrighted commercial software and what wasn't; Some of the files they had issues with were 30 day free trials of packages and free software put out by commercial companys (Adobe Acrobat Reader, for example). Other files were in my unsorted "new uploads" directory, and were things I would have deleted as unacceptable to post online if I had the time to review them. Anyway, after they subpoenaed all my bank records and realized that I was far from making gobs of money on this BBS - they quieted down, but still refused to return any of my equipment. Finally, after about 4 years - they called out of the blue, and wanted me to come get my stuff since it was "taking up a lot of space in their evidence lockers, and they needed it out of there." Isn't it great what our U.S. tax dollars go towards? Best of luck fighting them in your situation... Some of us really do understand how it feels, since federal govt. has interfered directly in our lives as well. - Tom