Not Mike Arrington. (Photo: screencap)

Mike Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, is not having a good week. That's because Homeland Security, that most reviled of federal bureaus, has taken his boat. We know this because he has taken to his blog with an outraged testament titled, "THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY STOLE MY BOAT TODAY."

Mr. Arrington purchased the boat--"Nothing too fancy or large," he assures his readers--from a Canadian company called Coastal Craft, as a little present for himself. Seattle, he explains, has "a big boating culture," and besides, this was the kind of high-tech toy he could blog about: "It has state of the art electronics and a fairly new highly efficient propulsion system that the TechCrunch audience would be interested in."

We assume he was also persuaded by fantasies of cutting o'er the waves, dressed in his finest, crispest khakis, wind in his hair. He named her "Buddy," no doubt anticipating many long, happy years together.

But the ambrosia has turned to ashes on Mr. Arrington's tongue:

"Buying this boat was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made, and the nightmare is only just starting."

It seems this isn't the first patch of rough water that Mr. Arrington has encountered on his quest to bring Buddy home: "There’s a whole story about the disaster of buying a new boat from this company that I’ll write about another day." No, Mr. Arrington wants to make it known that the Department of Homeland Security took his boat because he refused to perjure himself and sign a customs form that contained an error:

"The primary form, prepared by the government, had an error. The price was copied from the invoice, but DHS changed the currency from Canadian to U.S. dollars."

When Mr. Arrington wouldn't sign the form without corrections, Department of Homeland Security seized Buddy, ordering Mr. Arrington off the bridge of his own boat, daydreams cruelly crushed. Buddy, no!

But don't think this is all one, long humblebraggy complaint about the fact that Mr. Arrington has to hire a lawyer before he can finally, finally commune with the sea. Don't feel sorry for him now that he's a child staring at a dropped scoop of ice cream. Oh, no: This is an act of political speech, his Marin Luther moment:

"My point in writing this isn’t to whine. Like I said, this will get worked out one way or another.

No, it’s to highlight how screwed up our government bureaucracy has become.

A person with a gun and a government badge asked me to swear in writing that a lie was true today. And when I didn’t do what she wanted she simply took my boat and asked me to leave."

Join us next time, when Mr. Arrington will venture forth to the DMV to register a Porsche named "BFF" and learn that lo, it is staffed by very unhappy people!

(Update, 2:46 p.m.) Over at TechCrunch, Mr. Arrington has now posted another long meditation--actually, maybe more of a screed--on the meaning of Buddy's captivity. His missing boat is directly tied to our nation's inevitable disintegration, it turns out:

As someone immersed in startup culture, I am a big fan of just walking away from stuff that can’t be fixed. In my post “Always Swim Downstream” I talk about focusing on what you’re good at and just walking away from unsolvable problems.

America is an unsolvable problem, a nation divided and deeply in hate with itself. If it was a startup we’d understand how unfixable the situation is, most of us would leave for a fresh start and the company would fall apart.

He concludes, "America is MySpace."

This is just like the part of Braveheart where they kill Mel Gibson's wife. FREEDOM BUDDY!

Website seized! (ICE)

Anyone searching for cheap, counterfeit sports memorabilia, media, clothing and jewelry today may be disappointed. In conjunction with other law enforcement agencies around the world, U.S. authorities have taken down 132 domain names as part of their Project Cyber Monday. This marks the third year for the project, which goes after sites identified as sources for fake, illegal goods.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a statement about the take-downs, which noted authorities targeted sites meant to fool unwitting consumers "into unknowingly buying counterfeit goods as part of the holiday shopping season."

ICE's statement indicates authorities also followed the money to hit site owners where it hurts:

In addition to the domain name seizures, officials identified PayPal accounts utilized by the infringing websites. Proceeds received through the identified PayPal accounts, in excess of $175,000, are currently being targeted for seizure by the investigating [Homeland Security Investigations] field offices.

Since 2010 authorities have seized 1,630 domains. ICE reports that the banners used to alert potential customers that the site has been seized have received a total of 110 million views.

As for those Canal Street guys peddling knock-off Rolexes? We're probably still stuck with them for the time being.

Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus together on a plane. (PaulaBroadwell.com)

In spite of her training in military intelligence and West Point education, David Petraeus's biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell apparently never learned about tracing data embedded in emails. That's what ultimately brought the F.B.I. to Ms. Broadwell's door and led to the ugly unveiling last Friday of her affair with the former general and CIA director.

Wired reports the tawdry tale began its downhill slide into public scandal with email harassment:

The affair began to unravel after the Florida woman, Jill Kelley, contacted an FBI friend after receiving threatening and harassing e-mails from an anonymous person who accused her of flirting with a man who was not identified in the e-mails. Kelley is a volunteer social planner for events at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, which is home to the military’s Central Command. Petraeus was commander of CENTCOM from 2008 to 2010, when he left to take his position as head of the CIA.

There were as many as ten threatening emails. They warned Ms. Kelley away from Mr. Petraeus, though the writer never actually mentioned the former four-star general's name. Data in the email headers--likely IP addresses as well as other traffic data--eventually revealed the anonymous sender's location in North Carolina, where Ms. Broadwell lives with her husband, Scott.

Focusing on Ms. Broadwell, Wired reports investigators began watching her online correspondence, which is how they uncovered her affair with Mr. Petraeus.

It's no wonder, as the Washington Post reported Monday, that Mr. Petraeus viewed email as a fundamental form of communication and used it to stay in regular contact with staff, as well as the media. After taking the position at the CIA, the Post reports Mr. Petraeus even "proudly announced that he was the first CIA director to install an open Internet connection in his office."

Considering he was the top dog at the premiere intelligence agency in the world, maybe Mr. Petraeus could have learned a lesson from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who in September proudly admitted to CNN that she doesn't have any kind of online presence. "Some would call me a Luddite but you know," Secretary Napolitano told CNN, "But that's my own personal choice and I'm very unique in that regard, I suspect."