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Are there any other cases where source code has been censored by the government? Since code is copyrightable, is this a first amendment violation?
by CoolGuySteve 4y ago
Are there any other cases where source code has been censored by the government?
Since code is copyrightable, is this a first amendment violation?
- f38zf5vdt 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
- edent 4y agoSee, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States There is a long history of "the land of the free" carving out exceptions from freedom.
- capableweb 4y agoYes, this happened at least once before, when the Spanish government asked GitHub to take down repositories related to applications helping citizens to organize focused protests: https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/Spain/2019/2019-10-23-GuardiaCivil.md https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/Spain/20... The group that was focused in the take down requests was "Tsunami Democràtic", which you can find some background information about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Tsunami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Tsunami
- angio 4y agoWhy does that page not contain tornado cash under the government takedowns?
- capableweb 4y agoProbably GitHub acted in their own interest here, or Microsoft has received a gag-order not to publish anything.
- DennisP 4y agoYes, the government considered strong cryptography to be a munition and said it was illegal to put the source code of PGP on the internet. Courts ruled against the government in Bernstein vs. United States, saying source code was speech protected by the First Amendment. That's why we can all use strong cryptography today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States