If code is speech, does this mean anyone can write code to perform any kind of task (nefarious or otherwise) and be protected by the First Amendment? It seems difficult to parse that someone could write some code that for example, to break someone's pacemaker or life support machine and that person would be protected by free speech.
Maybe in that scenario, it would be the author who writes that code who would be protected but the person who executes the deadly code who is breaking the law?
Holmes's famous phrase means that not all forms of speech are protected. For example, the First Amendment does not protect obscenity, child pornography, true threats, fighting words, incitement to imminent lawless action, criminal solicitation or defamation.[1]
"Holmes famous phrase" was an emotional argument irrelevant to the facts of the case it was offered in, unsupported by the case law then or now, in one of the most repugnant, anti-free-speech decisions in history, which allowed criminal punishment for pure political speech (and which has since been overturned.)
I agree with you about Schenck, but I'm not sure what this has to do with the broader point at hand. Whatever you might think about Schenck, it is indisputably correct under American law that there are significant categories of speech that can be either proscribed or compelled. Schenck is just one of very many cases that demonstrate this.
Holmes uttered his famous phrase in a Supreme Court opinion upholding the criminalization of criticizing the draft -- which is in more recent times thought to be overstepping the bounds of the 1A.
So while not all speech is protected, the notion of what is protected can change over time -- hopefully in a pro-liberty direction.
The ELI5 of free speech is: you can say whatever you want so long as it doesn't come at a cost to another legal entity (normally people, but not always).
One example that I found very demonstrative while trying to intuitively understand FOS was a very extreme one[1]. It's a difficult but worthwhile read. The best way to understand FOS is to read up[2] on how it has been applied.
> does this mean anyone can write code to perform any kind of task (nefarious or otherwise) and be protected by the First Amendment?
It should. Code is speech, so banning private speech is to create a thought-crime. Unless the author of that code intends it to be used as a weapon and facilitates that use, yes, they ought to be protected. Your hypothetical also probably isn't all that hypothetical. Pacemakers have vulns, and it isn't illegal to create a PoC proving the vuln is real. There are probably real world examples.
> does this mean anyone can write code to perform any kind of task (nefarious or otherwise) and be protected by the First Amendment?
Yes, that's pretty much true, though actually executing that code to perform a nefarious task (or otherwise conspiring to execute the task or encouraging people to that end) may still be illegal.
I would certainly hope so: exploit proof-of-concepts that ultimately help to improve computer security are, in fact, tools that perform nefarious things.
> Maybe in that scenario, it would be the author who writes that code who would be protected but the person who executes the deadly code who is breaking the law?
How is that not the only sensible outcome?
Telling people about vulnerabilities is the only way they can defend against them. Defenders need actual exploit code to test their countermeasures against.
The person who uses the exploit to kill someone is the person who uses the exploit to kill someone.
Not all speech is protected, but yes writing code is protected, it is executing that code for nefarious purposes that is not. Just like writing down invention designs for a killer robot is protected, but building that robot and using it on people is not.
> If code is speech, does this mean anyone can write code to perform any kind of task (nefarious or otherwise) and be protected by the First Amendment?
Not a lawyer, but I don't think so. You can't just say anything you want, either (yelling "fire!" in a crowded room, slander, inciting violence, etc).
> You can't just say anything you want, either (yelling "fire!" in a crowded room ...
This is simply not true. Read Trope Two here [0] for a brief overview (although the entire essay is well worth reading), and [1] for a in-depth analysis of the trope.
If I understand correctly, it's not that the force of what I said is incorrect, but just that the specific phrase doesn't mean what I intended? The point is still that not all speech is legal, therefore not all code would be legal, even if code is speech.
> ...just that the specific phrase doesn't mean what I intended?
The point is that the boundaries of where speech loses its First Amendment protections are very clearly defined. Now that you are aware that the "Fire!" example is not an example of unprotected speech, you would do a grave disservice to discourse if you continue to use it as an example of unprotected speech.
I'm not sure that's what is being argued here. I think it's more like if the govt compelled someone to write software to break someone's pacemaker or life support machine, then certify under their name that the software was safe to use.
Of course in this case the person is a corporation; if this defense works I wonder if there will be calls for renewed scrutiny of corporate personhood. This may have been discussed in the article, but I was unable to read very far because I have an ad blocker turned on.
I seem to remember from physics class that mass cannot travel faster than the speed of light, so how is it possible for galaxies to be unreachable if you managed to travel at the speed of light?
It is possible because the galaxies are not travelling faster than light. Space is expanding.
Consider if you were travelling on the surface of an expanding balloon. Your distance from the starting point would increase faster than your speed relative to the surface at your current spot, because the part of the surface you'd already travelled across would continue expanding. Now do that in three dimensions.
If you're going to bake an Apple pie from scratch, first you must invent the universe. But before that, buy a high dimensional superluminally expanding hyper oven.
Just use a spherical oven and perform a geometric inversion with origin the centre of the oven and radius the oven's radius. Then all the pie inside will become outside and the outside will fold inside and you'll have infinite space for pie. As easy as capturing a lion.
Imagine that you go running with a friend. You run at 0.9 * speed of light and your friend runs at 0.8 * speed of light in the exact opposite direction. How fast are you getting away from each other?
I'm not sure I understand. It seems like you're implying that the two people would be moving away from each other faster than the speed of light, but I was under the impression that that's not the case. I thought that each person would observe the other travelling at C?
1.7c for an observer just standing around and watching the two guys run. I am not sure what it looks like from the point of view of the runners without calculating it but they should see a speed smaller than the speed of light.
The UK still has a good selection of sharp, merciless interviewers. My favourite is Jeremy Paxman, he's quite a polarising personality but cuts through bs like paper.
I don't understand why interviews (for journalism purposes) are conducted face to face. A written back and forth, such as in a forum or thread, is much more useful at cutting through the BS rather than having to waste time listening to evasive responses. I guess there may be some value in the facial reactions of the subject, but most of the time, if there was a written transcript, I'd have saved a lot of my time and energy.
I absolutely disagree. It is far, far easier to be evasive by text - especially when you have time to compose a reply. Face to face, real time interviews show you when the interviewee doesn't want to answer a question, when they're bluffing, etc.
There might be some people in the world for whom text reveals more of the interviewee's secrets, and other people that pick up more via face to face interviews.
I'm willing to bet that for most people the latter is more intuitive.
Interesting point. Although you'd probably get similar evasive responses, the host saying "Now answer more clearly", and a different (but equally evasive) response. They'd have time to concoct a seemingly informative but ultimately useless response.
Maybe in that scenario, it would be the author who writes that code who would be protected but the person who executes the deadly code who is breaking the law?