i'm sure i'll regret posting this to mastodon because even when i make an obvious joke with wry social commentary someone will try to explain it back to me, despite knowing full well "if the internet archive avoided anything that could warrant legal issues from the outset, the internet archive wouldn't archive the internet from the outset"
i remember when i visited the internet archive, and the staff casually said "well, when the government shuts us down, at least they'll have to break into a church", there's never been a moment where they thought they'd be "perfectly legal and safe"
that's the thing: archiving isn't something you do, it's something you fight for