Lawmakers Caught Again By File-Sharing Software 203
An anonymous reader writes "A document, apparently a 'confidential House ethics committee report,' was recently leaked through file-sharing software to the Washington Post. According to the article, 'The committee's review of investigations became available on file-sharing networks because of a junior staff member's use of the software while working from home.' Of course, P2P software is entirely at fault for this incident. If you begin seeing more interest in DRM from Congress, you now know why."
Reader GranTuring points out that the RIAA took the opportunity to make a ridiculous statement of their own. They said, "the disclosure was evidence of a need for controls on peer-to-peer software to block the improper or illegal exchange of music."
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahh...I love politics.
Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
"I crashed my car because I was texting while driving. #*%?@! car...! "
Most accident reports I've ever read are worded more like:
"The driver was injured when his car left the road and hit a tree."
So, yes, it usually is worded in such a way as to mean "#*%?@! car...!". :-\
Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
"I crashed my car because I was texting while driving. #*%?@! car...! "
That's completely absurd -- obviously your phone is to blame here.
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Don't blame the person who actually leaked it, blame the damned software! Ahh...I love politics.
Trust me ... that particular telecommuter is getting his share of blame. It just won't be public because he probably didn't do anything criminal. Of course, he's still an idiot.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
To their defense, we do have safety bottles today because at some point a baby died eating pills thinking they were candies. It's all about protecting the incompetent from themselves.
I wouldn't blame the pill bottle for that. Instead, I'd ask "where were the parents when this happened?"
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
The question is: Why/How could the kid get access to the pill bottle? Substitute pill bottle with knife/weapon/dangerous stuff/ and use the result when needed. Is the safety bottle unbreakable? If not i don't care how hard it is to open it. If the kid get's it hands on it bad things can happen. Mike
Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)
the obvious solution is to ban pills
or ban children
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Isn't that a lawGIVER?
Re:Lawmakers? (Score:4, Funny)
Or do they all just mindlessly parrot one another
Or do they all just mindlessly parrot one another
Or do they all just mindlessly parrot one another
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Connections (Score:5, Insightful)
So long as two computers can communicate with each other, so you will have P2P.
Luckily, we have politicians who's only education is in English, law, history, politics, art. So it's easy to push any techno-babble on them because they are dangerously uneducated fools.
Re:Connections (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily, we have politicians who's only education is in English...
By corollary, given that they do seem to have an advantage in that area, a solid grasp of English seems like a good idea if you want to convince them of anything.
blame spellcheck (Score:2)
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"By corollary, given that they do seem to have an advantage in that area, a solid grasp of English seems like a good idea if you want to convince them of anything."
Do they really? Being inarticulate is no barrier to being elected President.
Re:Connections (Score:5, Insightful)
So long as two computers can communicate with each other, so you will have P2P.
Luckily, we have politicians who's only education is in English, law, history, politics, art. So it's easy to push any techno-babble on them because they are dangerously uneducated fools.
They're dangerous because they are unaware of what they don't know, so they feel qualified (authorized) to make decisions about what they do not really understand.
When the Oracle at Delphi pronounced Socrates the wisest man in all of Greece, Socrates gave a response beyond reproach. He said, "If I am the wisest man, it is because I alone know that I know nothing."
Re:Connections (Score:4, Interesting)
In my experience, politicans are a lot more likely to seek out expert advice in an area outside their realm than techie are.
Re:Connections (Score:4, Interesting)
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not sure if the interest rate example in that article is the best one tho.
Re:Connections (Score:5, Insightful)
Earlier this week, he professor used a lecture at King's College, London, to say that smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness and it was actually less harmful than nicotine or alcohol. But on Friday he was forced to quit after receiving a letter from Home Secretary Alan Johnson who said his comments had undermined the scientific independence of the council.
The professor told the BBC..... "Gordon Brown comes into office and soon after that he starts saying absurd things like cannabis is lethal... it has to be a Class B drug. He has made his mind up. We went back, we looked at the evidence, we said, 'No, no, there is no extra evidence of harm, it's still a Class C drug.' He said, 'Tough, it's going to be Class B.'" Prof Nutt said drug laws should not be influenced "petty party politics" and compared them to interest rates, which are set by the Bank of England not the government.
Sounds like a perfectly good example to me. It's not about science and what the evidence shows (marijuana is not particularly dangerous), but about what one man named the prime minister BELIEVES and his power to force his belief on others (make marijuana a class B restricted substance). It's not different than a monarchy in that respect.
Personally this is why I don't think a central government should be making decisions about what citizens can or can not ingest. If I want to smoke marijuana or drink alcohol until I kill myself, and someone finds my rotting body in my home, so be it. That's freedom. It includes not just the right to life, but also the right to end your life, if that's what you choose to do.
Without that right, you're not liberated. You're a serf..... under somebody else's control.
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In my experience, politicians are a lot more likely to seek out expert advice in an area contributing to their campaign than techie are.
Fixed that for you.
Re:Connections (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Connections (Score:4, Informative)
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They're dangerous because they are unaware of what they don't know, so they feel qualified (authorized) to make decisions about what they do not really understand. In my experience, politicans are a lot more likely to seek out expert advice in an area outside their realm than techie are.
There's one big problem with that. If they are thinking about, say, a law concerning file-sharing, the expert advice is going to come from someone who works in the IT industry, likely from an ISP. The interests of the ISP can differ from the interests of its users. So once again it's about authority and not knowledge, in this case the authority being credentials gained by having an institution or a company behind you. It's one reason why the law is so often biased in favor of corporations and other larg
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and that's why journalists backed by newspapers gets freedom of the press, while individual bloggers gets court orders and/or sentences...
Re:Connections (Score:5, Insightful)
and that's why journalists backed by newspapers gets freedom of the press, while individual bloggers gets court orders and/or sentences...
... by people who have no idea what "the press" was when the 1st Amendment was written. Much of it was not large and institutional. It was often as simple as a concerned citizen distributing pamphlets or starting his own local editorial. The individual bloggers are true to this spirit in a way that the media conglomerates could never hope to be.
More importantly, it was better understood that when you read such materials, you were reading the perspective of the author. It was not taken as the "final word" the way professional news is too-often regarded.
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Advice from the RIAA..
protect consumers! Ha!
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in the same manner as a farmer protects his livestock...
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"When the Oracle at Delphi pronounced Socrates the wisest man in all of Greece"
Oracle at Delphi? Where? When? It's more Borland at Micro Focus, these days.
In the other hand, knowing Oracle, it probably wouldn't say nothing about Socrates at Greece but would pronounce Ellison wisest man over Sun.
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Socrates gave a response beyond reproach. He said, "If I am the wisest man, it is because I alone know that I know nothing."
A self-deprecating remark that not only expressed his own humility, but simultaneously bitchslapped everyone else. Wish I could have been there.
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Luckily, we have politicians who's only education is in English, law, history, politics, art. So it's easy to push any techno-babble on them because they are dangerously uneducated fools.
The committee released a statement on the issue, saying "[o]ur initial review suggests that this unlawful access to confidential information involved the use of peer-to-peer file sharing software on the personal computer of a junior staffer
Re:Connections (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Connections (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not just talking about this P2P incident.
I mean ones where contracts are awarded without tenders, or advertising flyers go out with completely tasteless and possibly illegal slams against the opposing parties, or any other political BS that you can think of.
It's never the people at the top that are the problem. It's always some staff flunkie.
That means one of two things to me:
- the big shots lie about not being responsible.
- the big shots never actually _do_ anything at all, so what do we pay them for?
Re:Connections (Score:4, Funny)
Luckily, we have politicians who's only education is in English,
So, very little overlap with your own education I presume? ;-)
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we have politician who'res
Which explains everything.
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>>>we have politicians who's only education is in English, law, history, politics, art.
Therefore more of us engineers and programmers need to run for office. At the state level it's fairly easy - you just need to stand by a highway, hold a sign with your name in bold letters, wave and smile. Once we get enough geeks we can start making sane, logical laws regarding technology.
Alternatively we could bombard our government employees with emails explaining why P2P is not evil. And ultimately even if
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So long as two computers can communicate with each other, so you will have P2P.
So long as two people can communicate with each other, so you will have leaked documents.
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Sir your mistake is to assume that they are educated.
Oops!... I Did It Again (Score:2, Insightful)
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Problem is, we can ignore Britney Spears by refusing to torrent her 'music'. Ignore the government? Not so much...
The sadest part of this is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The sadest part of this is.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Guess they figure it's unfair to publicly announce someone's being investigated if there are no merits to the claim. Want to run for congress? Get someone to accuse your opponent of something bad, then publicize the resulting investigation.
Re:The sadest part of this is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why does congress get this kind of protection when private citizens suspected of a crime do not?
Re:The sadest part of this is.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Then why does congress get this kind of protection when private citizens suspected of a crime do not?
This is not a crime per se, but a house ethics violation. It's an internal, private matter, as if your company was investigating you, not for a crime, but going against company policy. Congress policing itself, basically.
Re:The sadest part of this is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except if my boss is investigating me, *his* boss gets to know about it.
In this case, Congress' boss is the citizenry.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Wish I knew. I do, however, think the answer is "protect private citizens too," not "take away congress' protection."
Re:The sadest part of this is.. (Score:5, Funny)
Then why does congress get this kind of protection when private citizens suspected of a crime do not?
Juveniles usually get this protection as well. And since congress usually behaves like a bunch of spoiled children, I guess this makes sense.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then why does congress get this kind of protection when private citizens suspected of a crime do not?
They do. It's called a Grand Jury [wikipedia.org]. Although sometimes the media gets the information anyway, like in this case.
Re:The sadest part of this is.. (Score:4, Informative)
Then why does congress get this kind of protection when private citizens suspected of a crime do not?
It's an internal investigation. I recall one woman was accused of stealing a cell phone at her company. She refused to hand it over when someone saw her with it. The next morning, she had been fired and a notice was posted on every floor saying that she had been fired for theft of corporate property.
Later on, the woman sued for wrongful dismissal, won, and got some extra award for punitive damages. The cell phone she was using was indeed the exact same make and model the Corporation had purchased, but she had no trouble proving that she had indeed purchased the cell phone herself and been using it for quite a while.
So if your company starts accusing you of a crime, they're certainly free to tell everyone about it, not just their HR/legal personnel, but they better sure follow a process and be damn sure that you did commit such a crime -- otherwise -- that might get them in trouble otherwise.
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You don't want your local crimelord/mob boss being able to tell which of his lines are tapped by going down to the ministry and filling out a freedom of information form, do you?
Sounds fair enough to me.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Why should our government even have ethics documents that are confidential?
That information is contained in confidential ethics documents.
Keep leak mechanics quiet. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now that the politicians know how it's happening, they'll plug this leak. Our only hope is another one opens up.
* - I think "politician" is the most derogatory name you can call someone.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I always thought it was 'nigger'.
Even the blacks don't call each other "politician".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think "politician" is the most derogatory name you can call someone.
I always thought it was 'nigger'.
I always thought it was 'anonymous coward'
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>>>I always thought it was 'nigger'.
Yes that is a highly-charged word. You can't even say "niggardly" anymore, and that word is perfectly innocent.
Don't need P2P for these problems (Score:3, Insightful)
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Doesn't this actually show (Score:2, Insightful)
...the need for more ethical members of Congress?
Terrible P2P Regulation Bill Will Be Fast-Tracked (Score:3, Insightful)
For months now, some RIAA-influenced Congressmen have been working on a crazily overbroad P2P regulation bill, H.R. 1319: The Informed P2P User Act [loc.gov]. It just passed out of committee [govtrack.us] last month.
I would expect Congressmen to be falling all over each other to bring this to a vote now. After all, it's they're no longer just doing it for the RIAA/MPAA "campaign contributions." Now, it's personal.
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I don't think it's a big deal. It just means that a program must tell a user, "Your files you send via this program will be visible to other people." Most P2P programs, and even web browsers, already do this so nothing's going to change.
Re:Terrible P2P Regulation Bill Will Be Fast-Track (Score:4, Insightful)
That bill is there so that someone has to fry.
No longer can you say, "I didn't know it had installed itself and started downloading all the new movies in music, and then saved them to my 'Movies' folder." and have a reasonable doubt. Now you'll have to prove that the software in question didn't tell you that it was installing, and if it's true, the company will get nailed to the wall for it.
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That bill you linked to qualifies as "mostly harmless" - the keywords and tricky phrases you should be paying attention to are "owner or authorized user".
Note that it's all about what people who are NOT the "owner or authorized user" are allowed to inflict upon the "owner or authorized user".
Note that since you are, presumably, the "owner or authorized user" of your personal computer, nothing in this bill would have any effect whatsoever on what you can do with your own computer.
DRM here is good (Score:2)
No, I'm not blaming P2P for anything, but rather I am saying this is the exact situation where DRM could be useful. A proper document management system would have prevent an information leak, even if the document itself had leaked.
Re:DRM here is good (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't confuse DRM with security. DRM exists for stuff that is supposed to be generally available for everyone, but has locks and restrictions on its use, even after the transaction or exchange of money. Security is for confidential stuff that is not designed to be accessed by everyone, even if they can pay. Those who use DRM may still want the public to use their stuff, but only on their terms. This is a case where those who wrote the document did not intend for it to become public at all.
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DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, which is exactly what we're talking about here. The term has been sullied by the RIAA/MPAA, but ignoring their attempts that's exactly what they should have done with this document; managed rights on the document.
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On the contrary, a proper document management system would almost HAVE to be on the internet ( dependent on the organization in question of course ). The centralized server which controls access will need to be accessible somehow, and depending on the number of external entities involved I see no efficient method to grant them access other than to chat with the central server.
SOME p2p software (Score:3, Funny)
How unfortunate for the RIAA that their biggest target [bittorrent.com] can't leak information like that.
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Most of the information leak and inadvertent downloading of malware arguments are appropriate for Gnutella-like networks. As you point out, it's very unlikely to accidentally leak information over BitTorrent. It's also quite unlikely to accidentally download malware when downloading music or movies over BitTorrent.
Re:SOME p2p software (Score:4, Informative)
I disagree, it is entirely possible to get malware when downloading music or movies. Use caution when retrieving torrent files from sites you do not trust. This includes indexing engines. BitTorrent is very safe when used with torrents from trustworthy sites; ubuntu.com, openoffice.org, no problem.
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Which begs the question, did the person holding the document intentionally create a .torrent file of it, and where exactly did he submit it to, seeing as how piratebay.org seems to be down more than up these days ?
As you say, it'll be one of those scumware BearShare type things that not only installs all kinds of spyware on your machine, but opens up your entire C: drive to the world unless you stop it.
I think the government needs an internal IT policy that if you must work on confidential documents and hom
Dear RIAA (Score:4, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you.
Accidents do happen but ..... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Good point. The P2P excuse, "inadvertently" placing sensitive documents in a shared folder is indicative of either a moron for a staffer. Or more likely setting up plausible deniability. There is no provable intent, so there's no criminal liability.
Yep, networks are awful things (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA would love for networks and the Internet to vanish. Sharing information electronically obviously upsets them.
Which cave did they crawl out of?
Many files have been copied and accessed due to Windows file sharing mistakenly enabled on a public LAN, should it be banned too?
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Not quite. They want money out of everything on the Internet. Problem is, they haven't figured out how to pull that off in a way to maximise their own profits. They just want to roll back technology to something they can control and charge out the ass for.
A potent force for destabilization. (Score:2)
The computer and the internet are potent forces for destablization, but they are also potent forces for control. We're fortunate to live in an age where we can watch people grapple over their initial implementation.
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may i suggest we do more then watch?
P2P = "Open Information Network" (Score:3, Insightful)
Any time you read "peer to peer software" in a RIAA statement or legal proposal, you should
substitute "open information networks", because there is no essential difference between those
concepts.
So what the RIAA is saying is:
"the disclosure was evidence of a need for controls on open information networks to block the improper or illegal exchange of music."
That allows us to frame the debate properly.
RIAA Bullsh*t (Score:2)
The problem was the leak, not the subsequent distribution. DRM, applied at the source (the Legislature's offices) would have stopped the leak. Or at least provided a trail to its source. But once information is out there in the wild, its too late.
From the RIAA's point of view, stopping most of the distribution of copied content is good enough. But for leaks like this, one or two copies forwarded to the right people is sufficient to do damage. For example, the Pentagon papers didn't need widespread distribu
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They absolutely should be using DRM -- on the secret document. Trying to get everyone to stop using P2P software may be the least efficient way to tackle this problem.
What we really need (Score:2)
We don't need any more file sharing, or file sharing rules. We really need politician sharing! Let's start sharing politicians with the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and especially with Uranus. Oh - wait - that last would be redundant, wouldn't it?
More Please (Score:4, Interesting)
a 'confidential House ethics committee report,' was recently leaked through file-sharing software to the Washington Post.
Hi Government,
I like when the government tells me, even unintentionally, about things that it is doing to investigate allegations of wrongdoing. I would like you to do more investigations and to loop us (your employers) in on the details of the process and the outcomes. Some people will misinterpret such investigations in both directions. That is not cause to shield us from the information, it is cause to shed more daylight on the process so we, your employers, can understand what you are up to each day. This is much like my boss asking me to keep him in the loop on the projects I work on, and is commonly referred to as "accountability."
In short: More disclosures, please -- accidental, intentional, and malicious alike.
Sincerely,
Your Boss
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And another thing:
How many column inches did your corporation dedicate to Balloon Boy? If the answer is more than "1", then I submit that your corporation is part of the problem, not part of the solution. That is an example of what is wrong with for-profit journalism, and the very reason that many of us would be happy to see it die its rightful death.
You want to be a journalist? I applaud you, for we have very few of those left outside of YouTube and the blogosphere (though those media, of course, comprise
Nothing to do with P2P!! (Score:3, Insightful)
This has NOTHING to do with P2P. They might not even be able to show P2P software had anything to do with it. The issue is that ANYONE who is stupid enough to hook a machine dealing with confidential information to the net is a bleeding fool and this includes all my lawyers' secretaries who had their word processing machines on the net - the lawyer who sent me his complete client list, a certain accountant who dropped off at a pawn shop (for $25 bux) all her clients income tax returns along with her DLT7000 (70 GB folks & the tape was in the $3500++ drive!). She used it to backup what ultimately would fit on a couple CD's! She _could_ have simply copied each years tax return to a floppy disk for the specific client! The list also includes a company that had their accounting staff re-input months of work because they picked up a virus in their key machines.
Computers are so cheap that it makes no sense what so ever to take chances like this.
To all legislators (Score:2)
Yours Truly
John Connor III
Cyberdyne Systems
Why is this wrong? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why is this wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Which P2P sharing program are you referring to? The ones I've seen or tried have always made it fairly clear what they're sharing on your drive. LimeWire for example, displays a big list on your screen of the files it's marking for sharing if you click the "Share" button under "My Library" and try to share all your media. It has filters, as well, to make it easy to only share files with certain extensions (like MP3 or AVI).
I don't get how someone could overlook the fact it shares their material, even IF
Wow... who knew.... (Score:3, Funny)
....that P2P software would 'used' as a tool of democracy and open government?
Didn't see that coming.
Blaming the software? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why the heck isn't someone reaming out the employee/staffer who used his government computer system for personal use? A screw-up like this in the private sector would get him/her fired from many companies for violating company policy regarding the allowed use of the computer system. If that member of congress's office didn't have an acceptable use policy, I'll bet they have one by Monday. It may not be popular to write this on Slashdot but if your employer provides you with a PC for use in your work, it's not really a "personal" computer and you really shouldn't be placing anything on it more personal than, say, a favorite wallpaper.
Re:No. (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe change your sig to: Error 451: Sarcasm not detected...
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Yet the lying scum want to blame anything and everything except the buffoon that screwed up.
Twenty years ago, they'd have been blaming the Xerox machine instead of the person that accidentally left copies at Kinkos after making unauthorized copies on an unsecured Xerox machine.
Re:No. (Score:4, Interesting)
And considering they fired the staffer responsible for the leak, how on earth can you say they're not blaming the person? I really don't understand your interpretation of the events.
Twenty years ago, they'd have been blaming the Xerox machine instead of the person that accidentally left copies at Kinkos after making unauthorized copies on an unsecured Xerox machine.
The committee released a statement explaining how the document was leaked. They didn't "blame" P2P, they simply detailed how the document got where it is. If they had said that someone smuggled the document outside in their briefcase, would you interpret it as them attacking briefcases?
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with your clarification. This isn't intended to argue against what you said about that perception, but rather to highlight where that perception comes from.
The RIAA stated that "the disclosure was evidence of a need for controls on peer-to-peer software to block the improper or illegal exchange of music".
To answer your example, let's say that there is a wealthy, politically active group with a great deal of sympathy in Washington. This group is well-known for its hatred of briefcases because it finds them to be, shall we say, economically inconvenient. If the group said that such a smuggling is evidence that we need (i.e. government) control of briefcases, it might create that impression.
That's particularly true of the RIAA's statement since the document that was leaked has nothing to do with music. They are merely demonstrating that they're desperate for any excuse to demogogue anything related to P2P software, to the point that they will obviously clutch at straws like this. If they were really interested in security, they'd ask the same question another Slashdotter has already asked: why did they allow this person to work on secure documents with an unsecured computer? Only that wouldn't represent an opportunity to raise their pet issue, hence their problem with it.