rossbates on Nostr: In 1996, mathematician Daniel Bernstein sued the US government after being told his ...

In 1996, mathematician Daniel Bernstein sued the US government after being told his encryption code was a 'munition' subject to export controls. With the EFF's support, he successfully argued that code is a form of expression protected under the First Amendment. This landmark case challenged the fundamental notion of what constitutes speech in the digital age.

Code is speech.

Think about how ahead of their time Bernstein and the EFF were 30 years ago. Today's LLMs are proving that code and natural language are not just similar, but fundamentally indistinguishable. What was once a progressive legal argument is now a technological fact.