I too wish that the EFF would be a bit more honest when it comes to such issues. I'm very much against anything that divides up globalization and adds region locks.
"Import rights" are a relic of old company structures. You see them in things like Nikon equipment going for much more money in the US, where Nikon USA is a separate company pretty much out of touch with Nikon Japan. But Nikon deals with it by only allowing servicing in country of purchase: hey, their right to lower customer service if they want. A more nefarious issue is e.g. Microsoft in other countries trying shakedown approaches, saying you licenses bought in one country are not legal in other countries.
But when the details emerge, the EFF looks bad and hurts everyone on their side by misrepresenting.
As I mentioned in a reply above, an earlier EFF blog post (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/parade-horribles-supre...) on the Kirtsaeng case did describe what Supap Kirtsaeng was doing ("purchasing books at a reduced rate in his native Thailand and selling them below list price in the States").
"Import rights" are a relic of old company structures. You see them in things like Nikon equipment going for much more money in the US, where Nikon USA is a separate company pretty much out of touch with Nikon Japan. But Nikon deals with it by only allowing servicing in country of purchase: hey, their right to lower customer service if they want. A more nefarious issue is e.g. Microsoft in other countries trying shakedown approaches, saying you licenses bought in one country are not legal in other countries.
But when the details emerge, the EFF looks bad and hurts everyone on their side by misrepresenting.