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Judge allows temporary ban on 3D-printed gun files to continue
A federal judge in Seattle has ruled against Defense Distributed, imposing a preliminary injunction requiring the company to keep its 3D-printed gun files offline for now.
US District Judge Robert Lasnik found in his Monday ruling that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed based on their argument that the Department of State, in allowing for a modification of federal export law, had unwittingly run afoul of a different law, the Administrative Procedure Act. In essence, the judge found that because the Department of State did not formally notify Congress when it modified the United States Munitions List, the previous legal settlement that Defense Distributed struck with the Department of State—which allowed publication of the files—is invalid.
As Ars has reported, Defense Distributed is the Texas-based company involved in a years-long lawsuit with the Department of State over publication of those files and making them available to foreigners. The company runs DEFCAD, perhaps the best-known online repository of gun files.
[...] Judge Lasnik's ruling today only briefly addressed the fact that the files are already available on numerous sites, including Github, The Pirate Bay, and more. These files have circulated online since their original publication back in 2013. (Recently, new mirrors of the files have begun to pop up.) "It is not clear how available the nine files are: the possibility that a cybernaut with a BitTorrent protocol will be able to find a file in the dark or remote recesses of the Internet does not make the posting to Defense Distributed's site harmless," he wrote.
Will legalnauts with gavels smack down this injunction?
Previously: Landmark Legal Shift for 3D-Printed Guns
[Updated] Defense Distributed Releasing Gun Plans, President Trump "Looking Into" It
Related: The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home
FedEx Refuses to Ship Defense Distributed's Ghost Gunner CNC Mill
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:51PM (2 children)
I have so many black friends, my homies gave my cracker ass Nword privilege. I got a certificate and had it notorized and everthing. Niggers rule.
(Score: 0, Troll) by ilPapa on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:20AM (1 child)
Mr. President, you're not fooling anyone.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:35AM
Bathhouse Barry is out on cruises, without Michelle, son. He’s no longer president.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:51PM (17 children)
Convicted felons can either make a 3D gun themselves, or buy one from a private party that makes 3D guns (since they are untraceable). Sure, it's still illegal for them to own a gun, but as a convicted felon it's clear they are not saddled with concerns about the law.
Since private party gun sales are exempt from background checks the seller is in the clear as long as they don't ask any questions.
Should this type of situation be enough to prevent Defense Distributed from selling the files? That's a gun control discussion. I guess we should also be asking "shouldn't convicted felons have the same right to protect their homes and families as anyone else?" Well, are these one-shot guns enough to protect a home?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Monday August 27 2018, @11:56PM (15 children)
It's a First Amendment issue long before it even touches the Second Amendment. The injunction should be obliterated on appeal.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Troll) by ilPapa on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:36AM (14 children)
That depends on how badly you want to torture the concept of "speech".
Though, you might have a case for there being a freedom of religion issue, considering guns and Americans are involved.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:42AM (5 children)
Badly? How is providing instructions on how to build something not speech? Providing instructions on how to build a bomb is Constitutionally protected. Is sending data over the Internet speech? Is your post speech? Is it only speech if it uses a standard human language? That seems like a messy conclusion that would lead to an free speech absolute nightmare.
Of course this qualifies as free speech. The only thing I'm thankful of is that all the files are already out there, and no one can really stop it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @03:30AM
We are coining a "new" term to get around all that. Thought crime!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:46AM
Specifically The Hydrogen Bomb [progressive.org].
A graduate student who'd done a summer internship at a bomb lab gave a Progressive reporter one of those back of the napkin sketches that we all keep going on about.
Of course the Feds sued to block its publication but the Supremes ruled for the progressive.
I don't know what happened to that student. Sucks to have been him I expect.
Note that the plutonium rod is somewhat conical. The sphere at the top is a plutonium pit. The top part is a conventional plutonium implosion bomb. The X-rays reflect off the inside surface of the casing then a processing called Radiative Transfer heats and pressurizes the Tritium and Deuterium of which the styrofoam in the bottom part is partially composed of.
That imploded the plutonium cone, with its energy and pressure being enough to lead the D and the T to fuse.
At the very last minute the Feds quite desperately begged the Progressive not to publish that cone but to depict a cylinder instead.
Now the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has the H.
Some wiser head than mine DECLASSIFIED ALL BUT ONE OF THE MANHATTAN'S PROJECT SECRETS in 1965, I expect because the Chinese had just tested. You can even by The Los Alamos Primer from Amazon.
That one still secret item is the design of the initiator. At just the right instant when the plutonium pit is at its minimum size, the initiator releases a burst of Neutrons so as to get the cascade reaction to go really, really well.
When I read about the initiator in Richard Rhodes' The Making Of The Atomic Bomb I said to myself, "That just _has_ to work a certain way". By the time I completed Graduate Quantum Mechanics I am quite certain I knew enough to have designed that initiator with the help of the UCSC Science Library as well as the 386 box that I owned in the Fall of 1994.
"Wiser heads".
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:48PM
The Judge in this case agrees with you. It's just that the Trump admin screwed up the implementation. If they can manage to actually do their jobs properly the judge expects this temporary order to be lifted.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Tuesday August 28 2018, @07:21PM (1 child)
If that's the only thing you're thankful of, you're living a very sad life.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @03:56PM
Why? I value freedom of speech, so it makes sense. Or are you pedantically taking issue with my use of the word "only"?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday August 28 2018, @06:28AM (5 children)
What is a CAD file if not speech? It conveys an idea in three dimension in a format that can be inspected visually. It is nothing more than graphic art, very often of a functional object. If a CAD file is not speech, neither is something a person draws in Inkscape or Gimp or Photoshop -- this paint programs operate in two dimension but how does adding a third dimension make a CAD file any less the output of a person's imagination and intellect?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @03:05PM (1 child)
A proprietary file format?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday September 06 2018, @02:10AM
FreeCAD
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:29PM
If the guts of PGP's code are free speech, then it's hard to make the argument that a Cad model or blueprint aren't free speech.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 28 2018, @06:11PM (1 child)
That battle was lost before the 1st amendment right to free speech even existed thanks to concepts like copyright. You *never* had a right to freely distribute CAD files or other forms of schematics or creative works in this country. You can't say there can be no censorship, because the censorship already exists and always has. At this point we can only argue about the degree.
Not that I disagree with you in theory...but arguing about an absolute right to free speech isn't likely to be productive, since that right has NEVER been legally recognized.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 28 2018, @10:45PM
So does the government automatically own the copyright to speech it doesn't like? Else the objection isn't very relevant. One can have a great degree of free speech in the presence of copyright and such.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:36AM
That was ruled just recently, I found out about the ruling only just now.
In Florida and I expect a few other places, the City Councils banned the public feeding of homeless people. That led to such absurdities as a 95 year old man being arrested for ladling soup.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:39PM
What if instead of a digital file, I printed the precise engineering drawings and specs in a booklet. With sufficient details that someone could get an off the shelf software package, enter the design into their software and then 3D print it.
Why would that be any different than a book on gardening? (even if your garden has illegal plants)
Would we ban books?
Finally, it all seems so academic anyway when it is so easy to obtain an unregistered gun and, as a country, we seem to like it that way.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:30AM
It happens that Washington has open carry.
For a while now I've puzzled over trolling the whole gun control debate by taking the right of the mentally ill to bear arms all the way to the Supreme Court.
And I would enjoy doing so.
This because I like to read the law. Try it yourself - for quite a long time now all the SCOTUS decisions have been published on their website. I expect the appellate courts do that too. For case law that's not on The Series Of Tubes, every courthouse has a law library that's open to the public.
The Supreme is _very_ clear that _every_ argument brought before it must ultimately be rooted in the Constitution.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by DavePolaschek on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:24AM (1 child)
Go to http://www.JudgeRobertLasnik.com [judgerobertlasnik.com] to get the files without a BitTorrent protocol.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday August 28 2018, @06:30AM
Best Troll Ever.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by requerdanos on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:32AM (4 children)
US District Judge Robert Lasnik has effectively ordered something to not be on the Internet.
Next up, King Cnute [wisc.edu] rules on whether the the waves are allowed to rise.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:06AM
One way I've heard it is that it was a stunt to encourage his people to convert from paganism to Christianity. The idea was that he would demonstrate that his power was inferior to the Christian god's.
There is no such charitable interpretation available to Judge Robert Lasnik.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:44PM
Why not? US States are able to legislate that days have one less or one more hour of sunlight. Which has an effect on plant growth.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:42PM (1 child)
US District Judge Robert Lasnik has effectively ordered something to not be on the Internet.
Wrong. The judge specifically addressed that point, as described in the summary. He ordered Defense Distributed, alone, to stop publishing them (temporarily).
the Department of State, in allowing for a modification of federal export law, had unwittingly run afoul of a different law, the Administrative Procedure Act. In essence, the judge found that because the Department of State did not formally notify Congress when it modified the United States Munitions List, the previous legal settlement that Defense Distributed struck with the Department of State—which allowed publication of the files—is invalid.
Leave it to the Trump admin to fuck up the one thing I agree with them on.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:02PM
Fair enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:54AM (7 children)
When these plans get released, the lawyers and prosecutors will have a field day. As DA I would charge them as an accessory. As the family lawyer, I would sue them for culpability.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:48PM (4 children)
That seems like a very hypocritical position.
We don't today go after anyone who provided an unregistered gun to a killer. As a nation we seem to like the idea of unregistered illegal guns with no background checks. No limitations on who can own a gun.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @03:47PM (1 child)
It happens. Not often but there are cases of suppliers getting mail time.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:32PM
That is an obvious typo. I'll assume you meant male time.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:46PM (1 child)
We don't today go after anyone who provided an unregistered gun to a killer.
Yes we do. [atf.gov]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 29 2018, @01:22PM
Enforcement doesn't seem to be uniform. Maybe even selective. If enforcement were working then the loopholes, especially gun shows, would not be complained about so much.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:26PM
that's because you're a stupid bitch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:00PM
Too bad the inventor of the knife passed away otherwise we could pin all knife attacks on him or her!! In that line we should have executed Albert Einstein for paving the way to the Atom Bomb. I guess we will also have to charge a rather large number of people with treason, arrest 33% of all cops, and jail pretty much every inventor ever.
While I'm at it you need to compensate me for the emotional trauma of reading your authoritarian garbage.
(Score: 1) by exaeta on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:03AM
I'd run for election in the house, so I could propose articles of impeachment. Impeach Lasnik 2020?
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:07AM
If the linked website goes down for whatever reason, I'm going to host the files (shortly) on http://newjustice.org/ [newjustice.org]
Some of the older ones are already up.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:37AM (6 children)
So Defense Distributed is a Texas company. Washington DC has its own circuit just for Federal cases. So why do gun banning tyrants get to forum shop a friendly Judge way the Hell up in Seattle? We are seeing this more and more, where the Left gets to find one Judge willing to break the law and when things finally get high enough up the chain it gets thrown out but only after months and untold money gets spent. And these rogue judges pay no price for being political activists.
There is not a possible rational argument to be made here. The 1st Amendment is clear. Adding "digital" or "on the Internet" to an ordinary thing does not magically transform it into a new thing. These files are plans to build a physical thing. A physical thing that is entirely legal to build and own for the vast majority of Americans. If one buys into Mr. Jefferson's rather bold claims they are the birthright of Right of every Free man on Earth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @03:12PM (5 children)
Ironic that you bring up forum shopping and Texas and try to blame the left.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/business/supreme-court-patent-trolls-tc-heartland-kraft.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @04:10PM
That is all these trolls know how to do. They care nothing for facts and ttuth, just division and tears.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 28 2018, @05:04PM (3 children)
I wasn't aware that patent trolls were either left, or right. If I had given it a thought at all, I would suspect that they might be left. Look around at all the copyright trolls, from Hollyweird to Disney, to the MSM, to the record labels. Overwhelmingly left. Birds of a feather, ya know? Maybe we should look up our "favorite" patent trolls, and see how progressive they are?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 28 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)
So you think that either the US government is leftist (a concept whose hilarity I cannot begin to describe properly) or you think Hollywood is actively working against the US government (also friggin' absurd considering the amount of government dollars they get and the way they rely on the government to bail out their business model).
What all of these companies/organizations that you mentioned actually want is for the government to take over the economy so they can use the publicly funded police and military to enforce their own regulations to prop up their failing industry. That's called fascism, which is a right-wing ideology.
Easy mistake to make though, you just got the direction of power flow backwards. In a system trending towards fascism -- like we have currently -- the corporations absorb/rule over the government and the voters don't matter. In an extreme leftist (communist) society, the voters (via the government) absorb/rule over the corporations and the will of the person who founded that corporation doesn't matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:05PM
Don't bother trying to explain reality, this lot has long since given in to the Dorx Side.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @09:02PM
Well shit, you pegged us! At least we're not being represented by the Orange Demented One. I'll take evil Disney over that turd any day of the week.
Nice poster child you've got there. What's that? You say you never voted for him? Well tough shit, that is what you are now. A trumpette by sheer proximity to those nutters.
Are we done playing this stupid labeling game yet?