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Comment by LastZactionHero | Hacker News Reader

The recent issues over encryption has actually changed my thinking on guns. I'm not 'pro gun', don't own guns, and want nothing to do with them personally.

But as I think about my stance on the legality of encryption it sounds pretty similar to the argument for guns. Still don't want one, but it's harder for me to be dismissive of a point when I turn around and use the same point for another issue.

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Contrary to encryption you don't need guns to safely communicate over the Internet, say with your bank. So I'd argue that strong encryption is a lot more important than guns.

Sure, you don't personally need guns, but you do need physical safety at each end of the communication. Physical safety is provided by people with guns.

Those people can be policemen.

Police response times will never be low enough to be physically preventative outside of special areas (airports, stadiums, high traffic areas). It doesn't take that long to mug somebody.

Police violence is more of a way to discourage wrongdoing on the part of rational actors. Irrational actors (terrorists, mentally ill, drug-addled, enraged, desperate) probably won't be affected short of an oppressive police state.

Police has no requirement to protect. Also, there are people who live in areas where the police response time is 1+ hours even for the most drastic issues.

Just like with encryption, it might be the state actors you want to be protected from. So that argument is totally nosense.

If you buy that argument you could also argue that govermnets should be trusted as a holder of cryptogrphic keys.

You can communicate with your bank safely, you'll just be limited in ways to do so. Just like without guns, you can still defend yourself from a home intruder, but you are limited. To my knowledge, there is not a right to be able to communicate securely using the internet.

You can communicate with the bank with guns.

Probably wouldn't end well for you though.

Ironically, I had this same thought today while listening to a This American Life on Shay's Rebellion [1].

The right to keep and bear arms has more bearing on access to encryption than any other recognized right.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion

Er, no, the right to choose how and with whom you communicate -- which is what encryption is about -- is not closely related to the RKBA, but it is related to (and, in fact, the whole point of) the rights to speech, press, and assembly in the First Amendment. Even insofar as encryption is a metaphorical defensive weapon that safeguard against government tyranny, which makes it loosely analogous to the RKBA, it's still more connected to the first Amendment expression rights, which were considered important for exactly that purpose.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but case law has held that the First Amendment does not provide a right to privacy. It provides a right to self-controlled conducting of ones business. It provides the right to communicate with others whatever subject one desires (x09 F9?). But it doesn't state that the government can't know these things -- only that it cannot act on many of them. Which, sounds familiar to metadata / automated search positions expressed in Congressional testimony?

The 2nd - 6th on the other hand, watered down though they may be by subsequent court opinions, do directly deal on the relationship between things that an individual may possess which the government would seek to take from them for its own ends.

To me, the second set strikes far closer to the intent of privacy. Privacy is not some passive manner of communication. Privacy is fundamentally a weapon whose very existence challenges and bounds the desires of the state. Because privacy is fundamentally unknown.

Let's not pretend we're talking about encrypting just "the good messages". We're talking about encrypting child pornography, chemical formulas and processes for explosives, copywritten media, white/black/hispanic/asian supremacist propaganda, firearm schemics, computer viruses, and explicit pictures of ex-relationship partners.

The state has a reasonable interest in wanting some of this suppressed. But you have to make an all-or-nothing choice on whether it should be able to do that... or not.

This isn't about expression: it's about how we as individuals and citizens relate to our government and it to us.

Encryption may be necessary for privacy, but it's an aspect of manner of communication.

And time, place, and manner restrictions on expression are limited by the First Amendment (case law gives them slightly less protection than content-based restrictions, intermediate rather than strict scrutiny.)

And encryption restrictions that permit it for certain uses and not for you others are, arguably, content-based restrictions.

The content-based encryption argument is interesting, but I doubt we'll see any "certain use" laws. The problem/benefit of encryption is that if it's well designed then you have no idea what its contents are - mooting any content based restrictions.

We'll see how it goes though. I doubt the courts will be thrilled to do anything that circumscribes their own power.

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