The reason I made point 1 is because our default decision should always err on the side of freedom. Why would you bother restricting anything unless you can id

The reason I made point 1 is because our default decision should always err on the side of freedom. Why would you bother restricting anything unless you can identify some benefit to restricting it? It's more work, and maximizing freedom often results in positive results when the freedom turns out to be useful in a way you didn't expect. For all I know, not a single man in North Korea knows what the hell Notepad++ is. Maybe no North Korean citizen would have any use for any U.S.-hosted software at all. If that's true, then isn't that yet another reason not to restrict it? Is it really too complicated to say: "Data is not subject to export control laws, unless it's in category X or Y (like cryptosystems are, under current law) in which case the following rules apply: so-and-so." I think it's disingenuous to suggest that officials writing export laws "don't have the time" to make any distinctions on such a large class of exports. Our federal laws are rarely guilty of having insufficient detail. Additionally, I'd reiterate what other people have already mentioned, which is that if the (yet to be justified) goal is actually to stop these entities from using all this software, the goal is impossible. The law burdens U.S. hosts as much as it burdens foreigners, who can just use a proxy or a mirror in another country.