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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the pres
by ISL 7y ago
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
- paulddraper 7y agoYou need look no further than the very next right (the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed) to understand that these "rights" are rather squishy in practice. I 100% agree freedom of speech protects encryption, plain as day; I'm justifiably skeptical that a court would see it that way.
- mises 7y agoThank God for the constitution; I expect any reasonable court to toss Trump out on his ear if he tries this in about a minute.
- tinus_hn 7y agoTrump has assigned his judges so you may be in for a surprise.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoTrump has assigned judges? Source?
- nostalgk 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appoint...
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoThat is far different from him having assigned the judges that will hear this case. And if you're thinking that it will wind up at the Supreme Court (which is likely), well, Trump appointed 2 out of 9. So "Trump has assigned his judges" still seems like a mis-characterization of the situation.
- 18pfsmt 7y agoAnyone that thinks the SCOTUS, as it is currently comprised, will allow for a ban on encryption has no idea what the legal doctrine of The Federalist Society is, nor what it means to be an American conservative. This is the most libertarian court we've had in decades. Talking about judges as being "assigned" is both inaccurate and betrays an ignorance of the American system.
- typeformer 7y agoIt's delusional to believe that conservative libertarians on SCOTUS would fight for encryption. Those people voted for Trump, the most protectionist, corrupt president in modern history, they are hypocrites at every level. The conservatives on SCOTUS just refused to address gerrymandering, they have no true concern for keeping democracy intact, their only concern is keeping the people who got them there happy. I have zero faith they would protect encryption.
- 7y ago
- TheSoftwareGuy 7y agoPeople seem to be forgetting that cryptographic algorithms were export restricted for a VERY long time. Trump certainly can't block Americans from selling cryptographic algorithims (or anything which implements those algorithms) if the consumer is also american. But preventing the communication of those algorithms to foreign nationals is something that was done for several decades. I think its a terrible thing for him to try to do, but he would have some legal grounds to stand on, provided the restrictions are related to foreign nationals only.
- balabaster 7y agoIf my memory serves correctly, it was protected right up until Phil Zimmerman circumvented them by writing a book containing the source code for PGP and winning the case based upon the argument that the book was protected by his constitutional right to freedom of speech(?) Unfortunately, you can't put the cat back in the bag. It's no good putting export restrictions on encryption when the tightest encryption we have at present is already available all round the world.
- codedokode 7y agoThe law had different purpose, to prevent other countries from obtaining good encryption algorithms. That law didn't forbid developing encryption software abroad and downloading it.
- gramstrong 7y agoJust like how the courts prevented mass surveillance and illegal authorization of war.
- ataturk 7y agoIt may be hard to hear, but our freedom depends on people standing up to tyranny and threatening as well as carrying out violence against those who would subject us to their control. It is the only way it will be stopped.
- fooey 7y agoreasonable courts are no longer a given, or even a safe assumption
- clarkmoody 7y agoIf the federal government only did those things specifically authorized to it in the Consitution, it would be about 1% of its present size, and nobody would care about national elections.
- mises 7y agoCorrect. Hopefully, we can get closer to that.
- balabaster 7y agoSo if I establish that my religion believes in end to end encryption and that in order to practice this religion, all communications shall be end to end encrypted and all services will be presented to the congregation using such means... I'm protected by the constitution?
- bitlax 7y agoNo, that's not your sincerely held belief. But you're overthinking it. This is covered by freedom of speech.
- vorticalbox 7y agoBut one has freedom of speech without encryption. I'm having a hard time for freedom of speach applies in this case? I am from the UK but my understanding is that you cant incriminate yourself which would likely be an issue here?
- jumbopapa 7y agoI suspect you could find reasoning in the 1st and 4th amendment that protect encryption. Freedom of Speech would apply to encrypted to or unencrypted communications because you're free to speak in whatever format you choose. It doesn't say that encrypted speech is excluded, so it can only be assumed that it is included.
- dcow 7y agoBut you’re assuming that encrypted speech only contains its decrypted meaning or even that its decrypted version means anything. Maybe I want to speak the encrypted text. Maybe an encrypted message is what I want to communicate. Imagine an encryption/coding scheme where the cipher-text looks like normal speech but doesn’t mean what it seems like it means... hopefully you get the idea.
- jumbopapa 7y ago
- the_watcher 7y agoThat's an interesting hypothetical for a law school exam, but I don't think any of the Supreme Court would find it very compelling, as it doesn't materially abridge any of those things. People not feeling comfortable with saying things is materially different than actually restricting them from saying them. EDIT: I wholeheartedly disagree with restricting E2E and believe in freedom of speech as strongly as one can believe in any explicitly enumerated right, I just don't agree the text of the First Amendment covers this, and it's hard for me to imagine any of SCOTUS coming up with an argument supporting it.
- excalibur 7y agoI would argue that freedom of speech includes the freedom to say things that look like absolute gibberish to the surveillance apparatus. Whether they contain a coded message is irrelevant.
- umanwizard 7y agoYou could argue that, but does US constitutional jurisprudence support that argument?
- meowface 7y agoIf US constitutional jurisprudence, in the eyes of our highest officials, supports the argument that corporate money spent politically is speech, then I hope they'd agree that a random-looking sequence of on and off states transmitted through some physical medium with the intention of one or more recipients gleaning meaning from the output is also a kind of speech. I'm definitely not a lawyer, though.
- umanwizard 7y agoI don't understand how the two are related, can you clarify? What does corporate spending on political campaigns have to do with encryption?
- gnode 7y agoMaybe you'd be better off citing the Third Amendment. Judicial interpretation being that it implies a right to privacy.
- jacoblsievers 7y agoI think there is some confusion here regarding a right to free speech vs. the right to any speech. The courts routinely recognize the state's right to limit modes of speech, e.g. vandalism, yelling in a theater, etc. Isn't encrypted speech just another "mode"?
- edaemon 7y agoEncrypted speech isn't another mode, in my opinion. You can send encrypted messages in letters, spoken word, or spray paint; that is, encrypted speech is communicated through the same modes as any other speech. The content is what's different.