T-Shirt of the Month
We’re all familiar with the recent brouhaha about NSA telephone/internet monitoring. We also all know about any number of instances where our “illustrious” Federal government seems to ignore the public and do what it pleases, consequences be damned. (No, I didn’t say a damn thing about the AHCA. But if the shoe fits . . . . )
Well, it seems like one enterprising artist in Minnesota decided to use those things to his advantage commercially – and IMO, hilariously. Here’s the design on one of his t-shirts. The image is rather smallish, but expands nicely.
Predictably, some of our American Royalty apparently “were not amused”. NSA reportedly sent the guy a “cease and desist” letter claiming “violation of intellectual property” in parodying the NSA seal.
Sheesh. It’s called parody, guys. Seems to me what little I remember of the law says that parody generally is considered “fair use” of intellectual property. And that’s clearly a parody of the actual NSA seal – check out the text used in lieu of the original text along the bottom border of the joke seal. (smile)
Besides – last time I checked, documents/images/photographs produced by the Federal government cannot be copyrighted. They can be protected against illicit use by Federal law, but this doesn’t seem to be such a case. This is an altered version that is obviously a parody of the original vice deceptive use.
To his credit, the guy didn’t back down. He’s partnered with Public Citizen and plans on taking NSA to court for violating his First Amendment right to free speech.
I’m guessing this one ends up settled out-of-court pretty soon.
Given how well the rest of our “esteemed” Federal government listens these days, I’m seriously considering ordering one of those shirts. If you’re interested in doing so, a link where you can do that is is in the linked article (2nd link).
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Legal, Pointless blather, Who knows
Pure gold! (Is it OK to be mad because we didn’t think of it??)
Amazing how butthurt bureaucrats get when they get called out for being overbearing fucktards.
Hondo: Just curious as to why you abbreviate it “AHCA.” I’ve seen “ACA” and “PPACA” as acceptable abbreviations, so I didn’t know if there was a story behind it.
Ranger Up has a similar shirt http://www.rangerup.com/nsa.html
With how uptight the feds are now, you wonder how on earth ‘Female Body Inspector’ ever became a thing without being censored either.
Oinkin’ from the boinkin’?
Freakin’ from the peekin’?
Squealin’ from the feelin’?
I want one.
Squeakin’ from the Freakin’ changed to freakin’ from the peekin’ seems quite appropriate to this t-shirt, carry on Ex, Kick this Pig!
I bet they know everything that guy’s done in his whole life since he was born, even the shit he did in secret, after this first started up.
But that is still darn funny, I don’t care who you are (unless you’re the NSA)
Some of these bureaucrats need to experience that warm secure feeling that one gets when tied to a post in front of a stout wall. And none to soon.
JohnC: I’ve seen it referenced variously as “Affordable Care Act”, “Affordable Healthcare Act”, and “Affordable Health Care Act”. As I recall, the formal title of the abomination was was “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”.
I prefer to use AHCA as the acronym to point out it’s intended to
screw upchange US Health Care in ways the marketplace never intended and won’t naturally support.Here’s the link to where you can get the NSA and the DHS t-shirts:
http://www.cafepress.com/libertymaniacs/361692
I’ve ordered one of each.
Another government agency that can’t laugh at itself. Well, we wouldn’t laugh at ’em if we didn’t love ’em, right? They need to relax, maybe start wearing jeans to work on Fridays, something like that.
And they also need to remember that THEY belong to US, not the other way around.