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Comment by ythn | Hacker News Reader

> And it is very unlikely that the german court system will prosecute them.

Germany is cool that its citizens conducted international fraud at a scale the world has never seen?

I don't think this statement is correct. The diesel emissions scandal is hardly a new scale in terms of international fraud — just think about banking.

Why wouldn't it? US is cool that its agencies conducted international privacy violation at a scale world has never seen.

I abhor this line of reasoning, and it is depressingly common, especially among partisans. "I can do illegal thing X because I believe that my political opponent did the same or similar."

Is has become so common that it is a tell that the person using this justification is deeply partisan or otherwise zealous in some manner or another.

Not mentioning Uber breaking every transportation law they can find.

And the US is cool with "rolling coal" because....

In July 2014, the United States Environmental Protection Agency stated that the practice was illegal, as it violated the Clean Air Act which prohibits the manufacturing, sale, and installation "of a part for a motor vehicle that bypasses, defeats, or renders inoperative any emission control device [and] prohibits anyone from tampering with an emission control device on a motor vehicle by removing it or making it inoperable prior to or after the sale or delivery to the buyer."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal#Legality

I love this bit (not a criticism, just find it amusing): "The bill was introduced by state Assemblyman Tim Eustace after a pickup truck blasted smoke at Eustace's Nissan Leaf while driving on the New Jersey Turnpike."

You're comparing industry-wide fraud with an illegal practice that individual citizens do? I'd wager that there are easily 100,000 trucks on the road in the US for every one that can "roll coal".

...It's not? It's illegal here. It's not often punished just because (a) it's quite rare and (b) most police have better things to do than pulling some guy over and emissions-testing his car over something that looks like a simple engine problem. It's in the news because it's political, but it's not actually common at all.

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