Deer Valley & other Schools raided by FBI in piracy crackdown

In a major aim to fight online piracy, the Washington Justice Department
announced the creation of a new Intellectual Property Task Force specifically to
help with copyright enforcement.  As
a result, the FBI raided schools throughout Arizona including
Phoenix and several other sates that
same day in a national crackdown on pirated music and movies.  The main raids took place at Deer Valley
District's Administration Services Centre at 6am and lasted most of the day.  These places were sealed off from the
public during the raid.

 

These raids came without any warning; even to the school's top
officials.  Although classes ran as
normal, computer services were disrupted with both E-mail and Internet access
cut-off.  While the FBI raids were
taking place, the officers would not even comment on why the raids were taking
place or what other places were raided other than that a court had ordered
search warrants.

 

Deer
Valley announced that they have no
immediate plans to change its Internet Policy.  Part of its Internet contract which
every student, employee and volunteer must sign contains a condition that
Internet access must be used for educational purposes only.  Violation of this contract would result
in a ban from Internet enabled computers.
The school has also blocked many sites that offer music and movies
although they have said that it is difficult to block them all due to the huge
number out there.  Thanks to
jef195 for submitted the
following news via our  news
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Federal agents in Phoenix and elsewhere in the country raided schools and other targets in a national crackdown on pirated music CDs and movies. Agents poured through data and records at a computer command center for the Deer Valley School District in the northwest Valley and blocked the office from the public. It was among other places in Arizona and "quite a few other states" where sealed search warrants were served, the FBI said. The raids came on the same day that Justice Department officials in Washington announced the creation of a new Intellectual Property Task Force to step up copyright enforcement. Some of the stolen copyrighted material being sought in the raids is suspected as having been distributed from overseas sources. The raids are reflective of a new effort by the Justice Department to treat copyright enforcement as a higher priority, something that motion-picture and music-industry officials have been urging. FBI agents raided the Deer Valley district's Administration Services Center, just south of Deer Valley High School in Glendale, at 6 a.m. and stayed most of the day. The site houses the district's information services and technology offices, essentially the "brains" of the district's computer system, said Timothy Tait, district spokesman. No warning School officials were not warned in advance and even the district's top officials, including Superintendent Virginia McElyea, learned of the search warrant only when computers went down. Classes were not disrupted, but computer use in the district office was limited with no Internet access or e-mail. "We were very in the dark," Tait said. FBI spokesman Paul Bresson would not comment on why the federal government was searching a school district's system and he would not identify the other sites in Arizona or elsewhere that were served with warrants. Bresson refused to comment on the raids at Deer Valley facility and elsewhere and would not say how targets were identified, noting the search warrants were under court-ordered seal.

While illegal music and movie sharing may only affect the music
and movie industry, its shops but no one else, it is interesting to see how
a lot of resources are being put into trying to tackle it.  But when it comes to bulk mailers that
flood most company and home user E-mail accounts with spam which affects both
home users and nearly all businesses, we do not hear about much action taking
place against these.

Source: AZ Central