How’s this for provocative: if you don’t have a right to a 2nd Amendment, what right do you have to encrypt? After all, encryption has long been classified as munitions by the US government.

Encryption is no longer generally classified as munitions in the US.

Here's a link to start with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...

yes well... that was a consequence of the last failed attempt to create backdoors with clipper thankfully.. but you could argue encryption is a munition in practice if not by current statute. For instance one could argue without encryption the revolutionary war would have had a different outcome as it enabled Washington’s network of spies to tip the balance in favor of the revolutionaries. But more importantly the point I was tongue in cheek trying to make is twofold: 1) for a right to encryption to exist, an individual must be sovereign. For an individual to be sovereign they must have a right to bear arms. And 2) while there are numerous rights to privacy enumerated in the bill of rights there is not one that I know of that gives an explicit right to encrypt. But if one were to argue encryption as munition... then you’d have the 2nd amendment to support the right.. which as I stated is kind of provocative and that’s all I was trying to be.

Should gun rights advocates promote relating privacy rights to gun rights, I suppose that could spoil the perception of privacy rights among large numbers of US voters.

Maybe, in that scenario, gun-rights voters end up carrying privacy-rights US policy influence, but then we might also have a lot of other US people thinking privacy is not for them, in their own day-to-day lives.

Politics and perceptions are way outside my expertise, but things like this sometimes come to mind when working on technical stuff with privacy&security implications.

I hope y'all realize I can remember a discussion just like this happening 25 years ago on the cypherpunks mailing list. I just wanted to note that before I closed the tab.

As munitions? Okay, the ban-gun argument would simple be "fine, have all the ammunition you want. Just no gubs." :)