Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“In 1996, The US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that ‘code is speech,’ and therefore protected by the First Amendment. In 1999, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling. That PARTICULAR code COULD be used by PARTICULAR people to do PARTICULAR things is irrelevant to our absolute right to create such code. That would be true even if code wasn’t speech. A lock pick can be used by a burglar or by a locksmith; a gun can be used to defend your home or to murder your spouse; an airplane can be used to transport passengers or to kill thousands in a terror attack. None of those things are, or should, be illegal just because they can all be used to do illegal things.” (07/15/25)