The United States Pirate Party

As you might recall, Sweden's Pirate Party made international headlines last June, when it successfully won a seat in the European Parliament. In Germany's federal elections late last month, the nation's fledgling Pirate Party received over three-quarters of a million votes, enough to qualify for future federal campaign funds. At the time of the European parliamentary elections, I termed the Pirate Party, "a single issue group dedicated to reforming copyright and patent law." This, as I have come to learn, is not entirely true. Though the reform of copyright and patent law does figure prominently in the Pirate Party platform, the group is equally noteworthy for the hard line they take on the protection of civil rights and individual freedoms. Thus, it was only a matter of time before political piracy began to gain a foothold in the United States.

As the United States Pirate Party puts it on their website: "Our platforms run the gamut from esoteric property laws to bolstering our basic constitutional rights." Among the issues on the US Pirate Party's platform, we find a rejection of the concept of online piracy, demands for the abolition of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as well as for the reform of copyright, patent and trade mark law, in addition to an emphasis on the right to privacy, a free press, freedom of assembly, and the right to government transparency. The US Pirate Party is even already fielding a candidate for office, Stephen Collings, who is running for the US Congress in Tennessee's 5 district in 2010 on a platform of small, smart and accountable government.