Code as speech

Common card · No. 359377

Code as speech is the legal and philosophical doctrine in the United States that computer source code and similar digital expressions are forms of speech protected by the First Amendment. The idea emerged prominently during the "crypto wars" in the 1990s, when the courts disputed the U.S. government's notion that encryption software constituted munitions, instead recognizing code's expressive function in cases such as Bernstein v. United States. Since then, debates over encryption, privacy tools, cryptocurrency, and 3D-printed gun files have continued to test the boundaries of how law treats code as a medium of expression and continues to be the subject of legal and scholarly debate.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>, CC0