Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the cops-and-robbers dept

As details emerged about what happened between the feds and Lavabit, it won the operator of the email provider plenty of good will from the community, and it won the government even more antipathy. Our most insightful comment of the week comes courtesy of Scote, who questioned the government's actions from a slightly different angle:

Can the government legally force a business to commit fraud? That is what they were asking Lavabit to do, to fraudulently proclaim to provide security while, in fact, doing the opposite. Would Lavabit get that "Telco Immunity"? Or would he, as a mere email provider be subject to prosecution for lying to the public if he followed the government directive?

Meanwhile, when the transit police chief in Philadelphia acted surprised that nobody helped a cop under attack, an anonymous commenter won second most insightful comment of the week by offering him a little clarification:

Two things come to mind:

1. Police regularly say you shouldn't get involved in an altercation - that's their job. By not getting involved, all of the people were doing exactly what they had been told to do.

2. Never talk to police. Anything you say can and will be used against you. Calling 911? You're talking to police - don't do that.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, let's track back over those two stories and highlight one more comment from each. First up we've got Sunhawk with a simple but much-deserved hat-tip to Lavabit's Ladar Levinson:

Hats off to Levison; that's the kind of principle I would like to see in my email provider.

And in Philly, we've got another anonymous commenter taking an even more direct route in explaining why the cop didn't get any help:

Respect works both ways.

When law enforcement starts respecting citizens' rights, maybe citizens will start respecting law enforcement.

For the cops that think it will end in their favor, here's a hint: There's a lot more of us than there are of you.

Over on the funny side of things, first place goes to another anonymous commenter for his endorsement of the Red Cross' request for video games to start including war crimes punishment:

One thing that has always annoyed me about the so-called-realism in modern gaming, is the lack of subcommittees.

And in second place, we've got Mark Wing, pointed out that if the government still hasn't responded to the petition to pardon Snowden, its priorities are a bit messed up:

Maybe it would get an answer if the petition referenced the Death Star in some way.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got two more anonymous comments. First up is a reminder about the perils of View Source in a world with the CFAA:

"If you're using Firefox or Chrome and don't mind browsing in HTML-cluttered text, you can even use this link to navigate to the FTC site map and navigate from page to page in source-code view without triggering the redirect."

Careful - isn't that hacking nowadays?

And, last but not least, there's an important consideration about the notion that the "NSA Stores All Metadata It Collects For At Least A Year." Since the agency has redefined both "stores" and "collects", we may need some additional semantic (or cosmological) scrutiny:

Can we confirm their interpretation of "year". Which planet specifically?

That's all for this Earth-week, folks!

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  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2013 @ 1:28pm

      Re:

      Too bad you can't join them.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
        identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2013 @ 1:45pm

        Re: Re:

        Waawaa. Sorry, I don't break the law like all you corporate-google-shill douchebags here on this pro-piracy blog do.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 6 Oct 2013 @ 1:49pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Good thing for you then that defamation isn't illegal... oh wait. Well, at least it's not criminal.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2013 @ 2:13pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Woah, woah, we'rew both corporate AND doing illegal stuff?

          I'm afraid you don't understand how the law works in MURICA

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2013 @ 2:30pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          13 pirate warriors down 7 billion to go LoL

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          That One Guy (profile), 6 Oct 2013 @ 3:11pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          You're projecting again...

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
          identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2013 @ 4:08pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          average_joe just hates it when due process is enforced.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2013 @ 2:14pm

      Re:

      Hahahahahaha it's funny because rape.

      Oh.

      Wait.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      techflaws (profile), 6 Oct 2013 @ 10:10pm

      Re:

      And piracy still hasn't ended. Go figure.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2013 @ 10:52pm

      Re:

      1) Anonymous aren't pirates, they're activists. Learn the difference.

      2) It's alleged. Not proven, yet.

      3) It has not been proven that ddos is a violation of the CFAA.

      4) You're an idiot, and you prove it every time you post.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2013 @ 5:17am

        Re: Re:

        1) Anonymous aren't activists, they're pirate douchebags. Learn the difference.

        2) It's proven, that's why they were indicted.

        3) It's proven, that's why they were indicted.

        4) You're an idiot, and you prove it every time you post.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          The Groove Tiger (profile), 7 Oct 2013 @ 6:50am

          Re: Re: Re:

          Oh look, the biggest idiot on the internets!
          And we can add illiteracy to his list of stupidity!

          Indicted = accused
          Indicted =/= proven

          Yeah, go along now, try not to choke on that Copyrightard dick that you keep sucking so much.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2013 @ 8:50am

          Re: Re: Re:

          Oh, no! It's Mr. Barnyard Noises man! Whatever shall we do? His stubborn lack of an argument is compelling me to turn myself in for pornography I didn't download! Halp!

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2013 @ 6:28pm

    I think I worked out why egoistical giraffe.

    Someone had a grudge against Geoffrey the Giraffe.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    TheLoot (profile), 7 Oct 2013 @ 5:24am

    That second "insightful" comment...

    I want to bash my brains in... but I guess none of you would call 911 to help me.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    boomslang, 7 Oct 2013 @ 6:10am

    "When law enforcement starts respecting citizens' rights, maybe citizens will start respecting law enforcement."

    Cops are people too. The vast majority of them respect citizens' rights; it's just not newsworthy when they do. This should not have made the list of"most insightful" comments.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    grabacontroller (profile), 7 Oct 2013 @ 6:11am

    Drug War...

    I don't respect the drug war. Also, it's hard to respect a country that has the most arrests compared to any other countries. Police do work for the government and the respect of government to many people is none.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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