[salawat]

Says the rhetoritician; cleverly trying to blur the issue. Opinion or no, the principle is consistent through much of the intellectual environ's of the time. If both statememt's are read as opinion's neither wins. If both are construed as statements of fact, Franklin's still holds the more portentous conclusion. Namely that the being willing to sacrifice his capacity to guide himself to live longer , will inevitably result in neither goal being attained. Everyone dies.

So that's really a bit of a non-starter. I would say that Franklin has more credibility however; if only because of the man's legendary common sense.

I'll also point out, Franklin's sentiment can be traced back to the principle that "Vigilia aeterna est pretium libertatis". A consequence of which is, sorry Mr. Barr. Tell your police to do some actual investigative work. It is not the job of the populace to relinquish essential liberty to make tyranny in the making that much further realized.

It is what we do with our Liberty that elevates us as angels, or drops us to the level of daemonic debasement.

Law enforcement needs to understand their job should never be made trivial as their very existence in and of itself is as the sole means to rescension of that which culturally we value most; hich should absolutely be as burdensome a process as possible in the light of what is being taken.

Never mind that making unbackdoored encryption illegal just adds a token charge to a long list of other charges, which to me is an absolute anti-pattern, of the same level as most firearm regulation in light of the second amendment; which I'll admit to being a bit of a hard-liner on.

My 2 cents.

[ratmice]

Your comparison to the second amendment is not just "on the same level", but entirely accurate.

To this day the United States Munitions List, classifies cryptographic devices under Category XIII Materials and Miscellaneous Articles.

All the way back to the pre-constitution 1784 Virgina General Assembly, to some extent recognizes the need for secure communications channels in a militia. "There shall be a private muster of every company once in every three months", and setting forth those in charge of initiating and communicating the time and place of the muster.

People often focus on the first amendment right to encryption. But I at least feel that the second amendment right is equally strong, with the governments own position on arms control behind it, legal interpretation should if anything not tolerate it's own inconsistency.