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When law enforcement abuses citizens, some people choose to focus on any aspects of the citizen's behaviour that might have brought on the abuse. One such example happened this week when a woman was tazed by border patrol agents and a commenter accused her of asking for it, prompting JamesF to win most insightful this week with a reversed version of the comment:

Its so easy to just blame the civilian. If the cops would have just acted within the bounds of the law, she wouldn't have been tazed. They were confrontational, aggressive and generally behaved like asses.

Meanwhile, the FBI disappointed everyone this week by accusing the world's cybersecurity experts of being either uninformed or unfair on the subject of encryption, since "their letter contains no acknowledgment that there are societal costs to universal encryption". Ninja won second place for insightful with a thoughtful and sad response:

And pervasive surveillance has zero cost in his mind, it seems. I've seen and talked to people like him. They don't give a fuck about rights and the well-being of others as long as their narrow view of what is right is implemented.

I've been in discussions with people that advocate dictatorships are good because people are too ignorant to be left free and allowed to choose things and otherwise live without some totalitarian ruling them. And I don't mean some crazy ass out there, oh no. One of them was in his 25's, about to become a father and is generally a good person. This is scary.

He may actually be genuinely 'depressed' even if it's a consequence of his total ignorance of how encryption works. This is scary. And it's even scarier when you think that people have been trying to explain those types about encryption and why a 'golden key' destroys it for a while now and he simply refuses to learn. As I said, he is not alone out there.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start by looping back to the story about border patrol for an anonymous response to the idea that their victim's nervous behaviour was the problem:

Perhaps the reason she was nervous, was that she had just been pulled over and interrogated by a gang of thugs who can quite easily hurt or kill her without fear of reprisal and for the sole reason that they didn't like her. That would make me nervous as well.

Next, we've got a response to the Texas politician who said "I can appreciate Tesla wanting to sell cars, but I think it would have been wiser if Mr. Tesla had sat down with the car dealers first" while the state failed to pass its new pro-innovation bills. That One Guy noted that the opportunity for riffing was too good to pass up:

"I can appreciate Tesla wanting to sell cars, but I think it would have been wiser if Mr. Tesla had sat down with the car dealers first," she said.

"I can appreciate Emile Berliner wanting to sell records, but I think it would have been wiser if Mr. Berliner had sat down with the orchestral musicians first," she said.

"I can appreciate Karl Benz wanting to sell automobiles, but I think it would have been wiser if Mr. Benz had sat down with the horse-drawn buggy makers first," she said.

"I can appreciate the movie industry wanting to sell films, but I think it would have been wiser if Mr. Movie Maker had sat down with the live theater companies first," she said.

"I can appreciate Fred W. Wolf wanting to sell refrigerators, but I think it would have been wiser if Mr. Wolf had sat down with the ice sellers first," she said.

Over on the funny side, we start out with a response to the big ISPs that are already hating the way they have to play fair under new net neutrality regulations. First place goes to JD for a theory about why they are so upset:

The ISPs are probably just terrified that the FCC will treat them the way those ISPs treat their own customers.

"I understand you're upset. We'll send out an FCC staffer to talk to your lawyers and sort everything out."
"Oh thank god."
"They'll be there between 8am and 6pm either Tuesday the 17th or Wednesday the 20th."
"But ... those aren't ..."
"Thank you, have a good day. ::click::"

For second place, we head to the story of an Australian ISP that has promised free lawyers to people targeted by copyright trolls, prompting an anonymous commenter to balk at the audacity:

YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A LAWYER!

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start with another nod to Ninja, this time for his reaction to the legal showdown between Godzilla's rightsholders and Voltage Pictures:

So we conclude in the battle between Godzilla and Giant Bots hypocrisy wins?

Finally, we return to the FBI's demands for impossible encryption backdoors, where DannyB took James Comey's baffled despair and boiled it down to something simpler:

Experts say the sun rises in the East.

Others say that:
I'm no expert on where the sun rises or where it shines but there are a lot of smart people in silicone valley and if they put their mind to it, the sun could rise in the West.

Those narrow minded people who say the sun rises in the East are not being Fair Minded.

That's all for this week, folks! We're off tomorrow for Memorial Day, and back on Tuesday.

Furious Fred is back and he’s got a lot of blood for everyone! He’s giving and kind and concerned, this warrior of roads. Give him a hand! Or at least some plasma.

The post Furious Fred: Universal Donor appeared first on Scenes From A Multiverse.

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