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Comment by Nate75Sanders | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, it appears to me that the NSA misquoted the law in that article when they sent a message to The Daily Dot.

From http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/nsaact1959.htm :

Sec. 15. (a) No person may, except with the written permission of the Director of the National Security Agency, knowingly use the words 'National Security Agency', the initials 'NSA', the seal of the National Security Agency, or any colorable imitation of such words, initials, or seal in connection with any merchandise, impersonation, solicitation, or commercial activity in a manner reasonably calculated to convey the impression that such use is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the National Security Agency.

(emphasis mine)

That changes things quite a bit. No reasonable person would believe the NSA authorized this.

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Zazzle fears the cost of going to court, even if it looks like a certain win.

That's a general problem with the US legal system, and would be worth protesting about more than any NSA scandal combined.

Discrimination of the poor from access to justice.

This is the problem with crowdservices. Though it actually can be a strength if they decide to fight these types of things.

"That changes things quite a bit. No reasonable person would believe the NSA authorized this. "

Except that's not what the NSA would have to prove. The linked law is actually quite clear here. It says " in a manner reasonably calculated to convey the impression".

They would not have to prove a reasonable person would believe the NSA authorized it, they only have to prove that the person making the shirt used the seal "in a manner reasonably calculated to convey the impression that such use is approved". ISTM the whole purpose of the shirt and it's parody is to convey the impression that such use was approved. The fact that it's a parody does not change that, it only changes whether the receiver is likely to view it as a joke.

In short, I don't believe a court would use a standard based on how the receiver viewed it, but instead how the shirt creator was trying to use the seal.

If they are trying to use it in parody, then they are trying to use it in parody, not to convey that such use is approved. In fact, by the fact that it is intended to be a joke, it is explicitly not trying to convey that such use is approved, unless the NSA is well known for producing comedy items for public consumption.

I dunno. "The only part of the government that actually listens" sounds pretty positive.....

Does "Peeping while you're sleeping" sound like something the NSA would have authorized?

It definitely sounds like something they would authorise. Just not something they would advertise ;)

Well, they do it, and have publically admitted to it. So they internally authorized it =P

Seems unconstitutional to me. You can commercially publish topless photos of actresses vacationing on a private beach, and that's protected by the first amendment. If the argument is trademark infringement then why a special law?

The point is fraud. You can publish photos, if you're not pretending to be that person. Similarly, you can use trademarks to refer to whoever owns them, but you can't claim that you are the person/company it refers to.

What idiot could be so confused as to believe that this t-shirt is really being sold by the NSA, or that the seller is claiming to be the NSA, instead of as a parody?

In a world where this: http://i.imgur.com/aUOAv.jpg is not parody, it has become increasingly harder to get confuse

Hell, if you would take somebody from 1985 and transplant them to now, they would probably think the mainstream news was pure satire.

Everyone in this thread is missing the point. This T-shirt is obviously a political statement, and the NSA is using the law to suppress it. This is clearly a freedom of speech issue.

Whether US law permits this type of dissent suppression is only ancillary. If your law says that this type of protest is forbidden, you have a big problem! Americans always get stuck on "this is actually illegal" when having a discussion about rights. Your constitution is pretty clear about this issue, and a reasonable interpretation of human rights/freedom of expression is crystal clear. This shirt is a political expression, and preventing it from being sold is denial of the right to protest.

I still don't think there is any doubt about the t-shirt in question. I upvoted you for that poster though, wow. It's like something a graphic artist would submit knowing it would be rejected. Its imagery is right out of dystopian sci-fi. Is it real?

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