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> Unless you consider algorithms to be "arms" As the Arms Export Control Act did. > but then what isn't? Things not named in the United States Munitions List

• smsm42 6y ago
  That's not a functional definition, that's "government does what it wants" definition. No point in having Constitution and Bill of Rights then - the government can put whatever freedoms it wants on United States Freedoms List and remove whatever it wants from there anytime it wants to. If there's nothing outside contemporary whim of the government and any government decision is as legitimate as another - then what's the point of discussing constitutional amendments and rights anyway? Rights are what the government says they are, and that's it.
  • LukeShu 6y ago
    If you reduce all legislative action to "whatever it wants ... anytime it wants to" then there's no point in discussing any of this; they can just pass an amendment to the Constitution. You're right, it's not a common-sense definition, it's a "rule of law" definition. If the government decides to regulate encryption as arms, then it must deal with the consequences that it is admitting that encryption is arms, and that the constitutional limits on how it how it regulates arms apply to how it regulates encryption. Individual laws form a system, and even though parts of the government can change individual laws, they must still obey the system as a whole; that's what the rule of law is about.