Michael Froomkin wrote:

I agree strongly with Tim May that this (fun) little joke has gone far enough. I enjoyed it while it lasted, but the CJR was clearly frivolous, the T-Shirt was clearly not a munition, IMHO, and that's that. Write up the experience, post it on the web somewhere (I'll provide a space if you need it), and call it a day.

The CJR for the t-shirts was not frivolous. Not in the least. Letting the NSA/Dept. of State off the hook on this one leaves them with wiggle room. The goal of filing these CJRs is to find out just where the NSA/Dept. of State draw their lines, and to _force_ them to draw lines where they'd rather retain flexibility. At the very least, we can point out the rather strange ideas they have about what constitutes speech, for the PR value, during the splashes of media attention silly CJR rulings generate. Even more useful: other things remaining equal, a rigid agency is safer to deal with than one that retains the flexibility to selectively harrass. Richard