Unlike the case with Sweden, I already hold Hatch in incredibly low esteem. However, he seems insistent on descending to new lows of unworthiness. From an article picked up in a number of places, including the Washington Post (emphasis mine):
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During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.
"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.
"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."
"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.
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I'm nearly struck mute by the perversely humorous audacity of his plan. Do civil liberty advocates get to come over and destroy his computer until he learns a thing or two about copyrights and fair use? Let alone the Consitutional principles and basic tenets of liberty (and jurisdictional boundaries) which would be considerably undermined by permitting the destruction of property, particularly without any sort of due process.
I'll cite Gwen Hinze of the EFF on this:
This is an entirely unreasonable proposal, tantamount to a debt collector sending you two warnings that your car payment is late and then claiming that he is entitled to burn down your garage.
(Also see a comment on Slashdot for more analogies.)
Of course, today's news is that Hatch doesn't respect copyrights himself. From Wired:
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.
The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's website.
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According to the article Hatch's site might have since scrambled to achieve compliance, but that's not the point. It's more the "Pot? Hi, I'm Kettle and we're both going to get obliterated due to my really stupid idea" schadenfreude kind of thing.