Due to a weird interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Nintendo and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided 32 locations in 16 states in search of mod chip makers and distributors.

Their interpretation? and why is US Customs involved? Because the chips violate the region encoding on the consoles. And also the belief that the chips were being “imported”.

This warranted all-out raids and arrests. Yeah. Screw the courts system, we’ll just raid everyone for this extremely violent crime. Mod chips are, after all, a gateway drug.

Guess which department “US ICE” is under. The Department of Homeland Security. Good ol’ Patriot Act to the rescue again!

Nintendo supports the raids, and they should because they were the ones that initiated contact with US ICE about doing this kind of thing in the first place.