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THIS WEEK MARKS the two-year anniversary since Cody Wilson, the inventor of the world’s first 3-D printable gun, received a letter from the State Department demanding that he remove the blueprints for his plastic-printed firearm from the internet. The alternative: face possible prosecution for violating regulations that forbid the international export of unapproved arms.
Now Wilson is challenging that letter. And in doing so, he’s picking a fight that could pit proponents of gun control and defenders of free speech against each other in an age when the line between a lethal weapon and a collection of bits is blurrier than ever before.
Wilson’s gun manufacturing advocacy group Defense Distributed, along with the gun rights group the Second Amendment Foundation, on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the State Department and several of its officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry. In their complaint, they claim that a State Department agency called the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) violated their first amendment right to free speech by telling Defense Distributed that it couldn’t publish a 3-D printable file for its one-shot plastic pistol known as the Liberator, along with a collection of other printable gun parts, on its website.
In its 2013 letter to Defense Distributed, the DDTC cited a long-controversial set of regulations known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which controls whether and how Americans can sell weapons beyond U.S. borders. By merely posting a 3-D-printable file to a website, in other words, the DDTC claimed Defense Distributed had potentially violated arms export controls—just as if it had shipped a crate of AR-15s to, say, Mexico. But the group’s lawsuit now argues that whether or not the Liberator is a weapon, its blueprints are “speech,” and that Americans’ freedom of speech is protected online—even when that speech can be used to make a gun with just a few clicks.
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/3-d-printed-gun-lawsuit-starts-war-arms-control-free-speech/
Here’s the full complaint from Defense Distributed: https://www.scribd.com/doc/264435890/Defense-Distributed-et-al-v-U-S-Dept-of-State
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Friday May 08 2015, @06:21PM
There's nothing in the constitution about clear and present danger or any of the other numerous restrictions on free speech.
Which makes any such restrictions unconstitutional.
The Constitution was written very broadly as it was intended to be a "living document" where the courts interpreted or re-interpreted statutes to match society as the world changed, giving the nation a much better chance of survival in the long run. It was also intended to be given a highly nuanced interpretation, not a broad blanket ; Blackstone, whose views are believed (based on the evidence) by historians to match that of Founding Fathers like Jefferson:
Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public; to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press: but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own temerity. ...
But to punish as the law does at present any dangerous or offensive writings [after a "fair and impartial trial"] is necessary for the preservation of peace and good order...
Thus, the will of individuals is still left free: the abuse only of that free will is the object of legal punishment. Neither is any restraint hereby laid upon freedom of thought or inquiry; liberty of private sentiment is still left; the disseminating, or making public, of bad sentiments, destructive to the ends of society, is the crime which society corrects.''
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday May 08 2015, @07:40PM
The Constitution was written very broadly as it was intended to be a "living document"
In the sense that it can be amended, not in the sense that the government can interpret it however they wish as it is convenient in order to give themselves more power. You might want to rethink your position, because the results of this sort of thinking lead to the sorts of things we're seeing today, such as the NSA's mass surveillance.
Don't like it? You can always amend it.