After the Apple encryption announcement, we had the usual pundits bring up the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse [1]: "Attorney General Eric Holder, the US top law enforcement official, said it is "worrisome" that tech companies are providing default encryption on consumer electronics. Locking the authorities out of being able to physically access the contents of devices puts children at risk, he said. ... Holder said he wants a backdoor to defeat encryption. He urged the tech sector "to work with us to ensure that law enforcement retains the ability, with court-authorization, to lawfully obtain information in the course of an investigation, such as catching kidnappers and sexual predators." After reading Keybase cofounder Chris Coyne's response to the backdoor nonsense, it got me thinking about cryptography and the Second Amendment: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." As the US State Department classifies cryptography as a munition, shouldn't the use of cryptography be protected under the 2nd Amendment? If so, as the NSA continues its concerted effort to cripple encryption by providers [3] [4], shouldn't this be seen as the equivalent of the Department of Justice colluding with Smith & Wesson to manufacture guns that don't shoot straight and bullets that don't fire? Alfie [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/us-top-cop-decries-encryption-dem... [2] https://keybase.io/blog/2014-10-08/the-horror-of-a-secure-golden-key [3] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-secur... [4] http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg12325.html -- Alfie John alfiej@fastmail.fm