The comments were made during a hearing on copyright abuse held by the Senate Judiciary Committee. A Committee that Hatch chairs. 

Hatch’s solution is simply, after a couple of warnings if a user is found to be trading illegal files then a virus or other disabling program should be sent to the users machine remotely. 

Hatch believes that destroying traders hard drives will act as a deterrent. He also voiced his concern that file-sharing networks like Kazaa and Morpheus could possibly be used to trade individuals’ personal information; including passwords, bank and credit card information.  

"This alone can be disturbing, but in government agencies, employee use of P2P networks could also disclose sensitive government data to the enemies of this country," Hatch said. "At this moment in history, the implications of this risk are troubling, to say the least." 

Although Hatch is in favor of such drastic measures, they are not legal. New legislation would have to be passed that we limit or exempt the liability of copyright holders who take such actions against file traders. 

Hatch followed up his comments during the hearing with a statement today (June 18) clarifying his position, "I am very concerned about Internet piracy of personal and copyrighted materials, and I want to find effective solutions to these problems," Hatch said. "I made my comments at yesterday's hearing because I think that industry is not doing enough to help us find effective ways to stop people from using computers to steal copyrighted, personal or sensitive materials. I do not favor extreme remedies — unless no moderate remedies can be found. I asked the interested industries to help us find those moderate remedies."

The real question remains; If the Senate were to pass legislation that would allow such drastic measures to be taken, could they also legalize the practice of people sending real viruses to Senators in order to keep them from passing stupid legislation? 
 

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