Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Friday, April 15, 2016

People So Dumb That They Ought to Be Watered Twice-Weekly; DoJ Edition

US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Barbara McQuade, who uttered this gobsmacking pit of stupidity:
"I think it would be reasonable to ban the import of open-source encryption software."
Jeebers. Good luck with that.

See, there is this thing called the "Internet", Babs. You may have heard of it. Our own government has spent large amounts of money developing software for people to use in order to evade the restrictions of overbearing governments. It's not as though code traveling on the Internet fills out customs declarations. Anyone with a modicum of computer skills can get the stuff.

And I'm not even touching First Amendment issues. Code is speech, at least one court has held that.

Still, Babs may get what she wants, if DiFi and her ilk have their way. They're pretty much a toxic mix of being both professionally paranoid and technologically illiterate, so unless the tech community stays on top of them and watches them as though they were jewel thieves at a damond expo, we'll get stuck with some pretty awful laws.

Because when it comes to freedom, there isn't a right or a liberty that DiFi and her pack of slavering security goons doesn't want to restrict. Except maybe the right to give money to politicians.

6 comments:

Deadstick said...

She probably has visions of the Coast Guard stopping a container ship loaded with floppy disks...

CenterPuke88 said...

Typically, jaw-droppingly stupid political,posturing.

On another note, ol'Ethan Couch got 720 days in jail (180 days per count, stacked) as a revised terms of probation yesterday. It's the maximum the judge could do until he violates his terms of (now adult) probation. This is in addition to the rest of his 10 years on probation. I'm betting the judge gets another swing. Also, mommy is up next.

Comrade Misfit said...

Yepper, blogged about that yesterday.

CenterPuke88 said...

SMB...I just saw the finger...apologies, delete away.

BadTux said...

We're watching. We're on it. Basically 99% of eCommerce is based on open source encryption products, including *all* of Amazon.com, so we're talking about probably a trillion dollars at stake here. I suspect that these dipsticks aren't gonna know what hits them.

Comrade Misfit said...

And since Lord Bezos also owns the WaPo, I presume copious amounts of both heat and pressure will be given.