MARCH 4
Code as Speech
The Freedom No One Has the Right to Take
The Signal
Privacy is not a favour from government. It is a freedom government must not take away.
The Reading
Yesterday’s room falls quiet as code appears on a screen. It carries a simple idea: people should be able to speak and exchange value privately. Code is a human idea a computer can follow.
In the 1990s, the United States government treated encryption like a weapon. Phil Zimmermann was investigated after his privacy program spread overseas. Daniel Bernstein fought in court for the right to publish encryption code. Courts agreed that code can be protected speech. PGP’s code was even printed inside a book. The same instructions were free on paper but restricted on a screen.
Years later, Samourai Wallet helped people use Bitcoin privately. Its makers never held the users’ Bitcoin or the secret needed to move it. Government experts told prosecutors this strongly suggested Samourai was not a money business. Yet its developers were arrested and faced charges carrying up to twenty years and five years. The government said they encouraged criminal use. They admitted only the five year charge. The twenty year charge was never tried. Imagine the pressure.
Samourai’s services moved more than $2 billion. The government identified about $237 million as criminal money. For every $100 moved, about $12 was identified as criminal and about $88 was not identified as criminal. Criminals use cash too, but we punish the criminal, not everyone who prints or uses cash.
The line is simple. If developers knowingly build for criminals, investigate them. But when someone builds privacy for ordinary people, do not blame the builder for everyone who misuses it. That is not justice. Bitcoin gives peaceful people control over their money. They should never need permission to protect it. Punish criminals. Leave builders and lawful users alone. Our privacy is not yours to take.
First Principles
The person who commits a crime is responsible for it.
A privacy tool is not guilty because someone misuses it.
Freedom belongs to the people before government gives permission.
Today’s Challenge
Pick up your house key. A criminal could use a key to hide stolen property. Should the locksmith be arrested? Of course not.
Now imagine that metal key becoming computer code. The principle does not change. Hold the key for ten seconds and decide silently where you stand.
The criminal is responsible for the crime. The builder is not. That is the battle that has been fought since the meeting in that room.
Where do you stand?
Tomorrow’s Signal
The Problem of Trust