VLVL(6) - SNUFFLE update

[David Morris]

from:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6343,00.html

Judge rejects crypto limits
By Alex Lash
Staff, CNET News.com
December 19, 1996, 9:30 a.m. PT

update In a ruling released yesterday, a federal judge declared that 
government restrictions on the distribution of encryption software violate 
First Amendment rights of free speech.

U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Patel's ruling regarded Bernstein vs. 
U.S. Department of State, a suit filed two years ago by University of 
Illinois math professor Daniel Bernstein who was told by the State 
Department that he couldn't publish an encryption program without 
registering as an arms dealer and acquiring an export license.
[snip]
Patel's ruling is the second on the case. She had ruled in April that 
software source code is a form of protected free speech. "Like music and 
mathematical equations, computer language is just that- language--and it 
communicates information either to a computer or to those who can read it. 
For the purpose of First Amendment analysis, this court finds that source 
code is speech."

The ruling released yesterday went further, saying that existing government 
controls on the distribution of encryption software are so convoluted that 
they create an atmosphere of "prior restraint," and thus restrict 
constitutionally protected speech.