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If the 2nd Amendment is for A) self-defense without the government, or B) eventual resistance against the government itself, then surely it should be interprete
by zachrose 9y ago
If the 2nd Amendment is for A) self-defense without the government, or B) eventual resistance against the government itself, then surely it should be interpreted to protect strong encryption.
- zebrafish 9y agoAgreed. The wording of the 2nd amendment doesn't lend itself to encryption though which could be an issue.
- didgeoridoo 9y agoI hadn't ever really thought of this, but cryptography has sometimes been considered a "military munition" for purposes of restricting export: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th... Is there any existing jurisprudence defending citizen access to cryptography on 2nd Amendment grounds?
- zachrose 9y agoThere's this one xkcd: https://xkcd.com/504/ https://xkcd.com/504/ But no, to my knowledge this legal argument has not been made in court. (Here's a Motherboard article about the possibility: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-second-amendment-case-for-the-right-to-bear-encryption. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-second-amendm...) So far I think it's more interesting to consider as a political argument than a legal one: conservatives who like guns should (IMHO) have every reason to oppose state-weakened cryptography, as much as that might fracture the law-and-order conservatism from libertarian conservatism. (Also, there is no universe where a militia with automatic weapons and tapped email is really going anywhere.)