Comment by RobRivera
8 hours ago
So the government is afforded the opportunity to constrict compute if for a government interest.
This bill seems to expand powers, not restrict
8 hours ago
So the government is afforded the opportunity to constrict compute if for a government interest.
This bill seems to expand powers, not restrict
Before the law, I think the state government or local governments could (by passing a law) restrict computing for any reason, even without a government interest. Now, they'd have to repeal this first.
How?
I know the whole 90s meme of 'I am a controlled munition' went around because cryptography was labeled an ordnance subject to export control laws, and therefore code that performed those kind of computations were forbidden to be sold abroad, liable to a felony.
What happens today? Government gets rights to source code, logs, and rubber stamps/rejects your code from executing in the cloud?
Government limits your access to commodity infrastructure?
djb had to (with the EFF) spend years in court to establish (on appeal) that writing crypto code was a speech issue:
https://www.eff.org/cases/bernstein-v-us-dept-justice
Laws like this make it much simpler for someone to challenge a law or regulation. They don't have to convince the judge (and possibly appeals court) that building or using a computer is a form of protected expression, this law says it is.
It may seem kind of flimsy or non-consequential, but while it's not a massive change, it is a really change and it's constructive.
How? By default, state governments can pass basically whatever laws they want. They don't have (theoretically) limited enumerated powers like the federal government.
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