Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the through-the-grapevine dept

This week, the silver lining on a horrible story of police battering an arrestee was that the deputy, at least, lost his immunity. One anonymous commenter won most insightful comment of the week by giving a nod to the victim's courage and resilience:

the real story here is not the creep. it's paul stephens. that man must have the soul of nelson mandela to have withstood that abuse and kept his wits about him.

all due respect.

For second place, we head the story of Idaho's governor vetoing a forfeiture reform bill that was overwhelmingly supported by the legislature. That One Guy had plenty of thoughts on the governor's statement:

There have been no allegations that Idaho law enforcement officers or agencies are illegally or inappropriately seizing property from alleged drug traffickers. Its sponsors contend that the measure is aimed at preventing improper forfeiture of assets in the future, but there is no evidence to suggest that such a problem is imminent.

In which case the bill wouldn't have hampered police in Idaho in the slightest. It's like a bill specifically prohibiting police from using refurbished WW2 bombers for surveillance, that's only going to be a problem for them if they plan on doing so.

Of course as seems to be the case the governor doesn't consider stealing someone's stuff without a conviction a 'problem' or 'abuse' so long as it's the police doing the stealing, so that's likely what he means when he says that there's no evidence of a 'problem'.

The fact that this bipartisan legislation was overwhelmingly approved by both the House and Senate is outweighed by compelling opposition from law enforcement and the absence of any benefit to law-abiding citizens from its enactment.

So 'Not having your stuff stolen from you without a conviction of guilt' apparently isn't a 'benefit to law-abiding citizens' to him. Good to know where his priorities lie.

Given the overwhelming support the bill had(58-10) I would hope that they can override his veto and shove it into place regardless.

"You don't get to steal anything that catches your eye just because you happen to have a badge" isn't something that should even be need to be said, that it needs to be explicitly spelled out in the law is beyond absurd, and hopefully they can override this tool of a governor in order to at least start to address the problem.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more comment from That One Guy, this time in response to the ongoing fight over Kim Dotcom's extradition and assets:

The second two issues are connected: and it's basically the question of whether the courts were right in saying that the federal government could take Dotcom's stuff and that Dotcom could not protest, because he was "a fugitive." Of course, he's not a "fugitive." He's just fighting extradition to a place he's never been. He isn't running away and is going through the full legal process he's entitled to in New Zealand. That's not someone hiding from the US, it's someone who is following the basic rules of due process, which the US wishes to deny him.

If the court refuses to take up the case, or worse takes it up and rules against him on that matter they might as well strike fighting against extradition as a legal right from the law entirely.

If you can be punished for exercising a legal right, to say it's a legal right becomes little more than empty words, and at that point why waste time and effort keeping up with the obvious fiction about it being a right, just honestly state 'The second the extradition order is handed out you are considered guilty, and any objections you may make will merely be taken as further evidence of your guilt.'

Either fighting extradition is a right under the law, in which case it's absurd to punish someone for making use of it, or it's not a right, in which case stop with the farce and remove it from the law entirely.

Next, we've Dan with a simple resolution to the Fearless Girl/Charging Bull dispute:

They can offer to remove the bull and let the artist take possession. He'll back down.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner comes from Roger Strong in response to Denuvo's likely-to-be-short-lived upper hand in the ongoing DRM battle:

Reporter: "How long do you think it'll take to crack this DRM?"

Gamer: "Ten,"

Reporter: "Ten what? Ten months? Ten weeks?"

Gamer: "Nine..."

For second place, we head all the way back to last week's comments post, where Spaceman Spiff had more to say on the subject of armed police drones:

So, if you shoot down a cop drone, does that make you a copter killer?

For editor's choice on the funny side, let's throw in another comment on that subject, again from Roger Strong in response to confusion about the many different kinds of drones:

Abnormal pairings are an important part of any cop movie.

One's a no-nonsense by-the-book fixed-wing drone pilot in Mumbai. The other is a maverick quad-copter pilot in Kiev who doesn't play by the rules! Together they protect the streets of New York from protesters and others who would threaten the good corporate citizens of America! (Exciting music mixed with explosions...)

Finally, it's practically obligatory to include at least one (anonymous) variation on the joke everyone's been making about this week's statue dust-up:

While it's the statue in front of the bull might have lead to this copyright case, it's what can be found on the other side that nicely sums up copyright law in this country.

That's all for this week, folks!

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