of CamWorld pointed to a transcript of the deCSS trial from July 25, 2000. I read it that day while I ate lunch at my desk. In the transcript, there’s a lot of stuff that seems to miss the point, or make a point so tangentially that I wonder if the judge et al. will really get it. But not everything was so oblique – one witness explained, clearly, how code could be construed as speech, and therefore protected in the US by the First Amendment – finally!
I say finally because this has been an issue ever since I first jumped online in 1993, when I got hooked on the whole crypto/PGP thing. Code = speech has a long history, and it might finally be getting its due. I’m not 100% sure how far down that road I go, mind, but I think it’s a compelling argument and definitely the case to some extent.
