Back in December 2011, the blog TorrentFreak, which covers news about BitTorrent, reported that the House of Representatives was illegally downloading a number of TV shows and self-help books around the same time some members of Congress were drafting legislation for the Stop Online Piracy Act.
– A new report shows staffers in Congress—or maybe even the lawmakers themselves—are big fans of illegal downloading. A site called ScanEye tracked downloads via IP addresses and found that congressional offices downloaded all kinds of illegal fare over the last four months, from the mob flick Lawless, to episodes of Dexter, CSI: New York, the Ellen Degeneres Show, and Ultimate Fighter, to the Smurfs movie, reports the Whispers blog at US News & World Report. The specific offices were not named. Of course, the timing isn't quite as heinous as it was in 2011, when TorrentFreak found that House offices were pirating content even as the Stop Online Piracy Act was being drafted.