By Andrea O’Sullivan and Adam Thierer (First published at The Bridge on August 1, 2018.)
Technology is changing the ways that entrepreneurs interact with, and increasingly get away from, existing government regulations. The
ongoing legal battles surrounding 3D-printed weapons provide yet another timely example.
For years, a consortium of techies called Defense Distributed has sought to secure more protections for gun owners by
making the code allowing someone to print their own guns available online. Rather than taking their fight to Capitol Hill and spending billions of dollars lobbying in potentially fruitless pursuits of marginal legislative victories, Defense Distributed ties their fortunes to the mast of technological determinism and blurs the lines between regulated physical reality and the open world of cyberspace.
The federal government moved fast, with gun control advocates like Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and former Representative Steve Israel (D-NY)
proposing legislation to criminalize Defense Distributed’s activities. They failed.
Plan B in the efforts to quash these acts of 3D-printing disobedience was to classify the Computer-aided design (CAD) files that Defense Distributed posted online as a kind of internationally-controlled munition. The US State Department engaged in a years-long legal brawl over whether or not Defense Distributed
violated established International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The group pulled down the files while the issue was examined in court, but the code had long since been uploaded to sharing sites like The Pirate Bay. The files have also been available on the Internet Archive for many years. The CAD, if you will excuse the pun, is out of the bag.
In a surprising move, the
Department of Justice suddenly moved to drop the suit and settle with Defense Distributed last month. It agreed to cover the group’s legal fees and cease its attempt to regulate code already easily accessible online. While no legal precedent was set, since this was merely a settlement, it is likely that the government realized that its case would be unwinnable.
Gun control advocates did not react well to this legal retreat. Continue reading →
I’m pleased to announce the publication of my latest law review article, “Guns, Limbs, and Toys: What Future for 3D Printing?” The article, which appears in Vol. 17 of the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, was co-authored with Adam Marcus. Here’s the abstract:
We stand on the cusp of the next great industrial revolution thanks to technological innovations and developments that could significantly enhance the welfare of people across the world. This article will focus on how one of those modern inventions–3D printing–could offer the public significant benefits, but not without some serious economic, social, and legal disruptions along the way. We begin by explaining what 3D printing is and how it works. We also discuss specific applications of this technology and its potential benefits. We then turn to the policy frameworks that could govern 3D printing technologies and itemize a few of the major public policy issues that are either already being discussed, or which could become pertinent in the future. We offer some general guidance for policymakers who might be pondering the governance of 3D printing technologies going forward. Contra to the many other articles and position papers that have already been penned about 3D printing policy, which only selectively defend permissionless innovation in narrow circumstances, we endorse it as the default rule across all categories of 3D printing applications.
More specifically, we do a deep dive into 3 primary public policy “fault lines” for 3D printing: firearms, medical devices, and intellectual property concerns. Read the whole thing for more details.
The success of the Internet and the modern digital economy was due to its open, generative nature, driven by the ethos of “permissionless innovation.” A “light-touch” policy regime helped make this possible. Of particular legal importance was the immunization of online intermediaries from punishing forms of liability associated with the actions of third parties.
As “software eats the world” and the digital revolution extends its reach to the physical world, policymakers should extend similar legal protections to other “generative” tools and platforms, such as robotics, 3D printing, and virtual reality.
In other words, we need a Section 230 for the “maker” movement. Continue reading →
And so the series continues. The Washington Post reports that the Department of Justice has just released “a scathing report” finding that over a 5-year period the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “lost dozens of weapons and hundreds of laptops that contained sensitive information.” The DOJ’s Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found that 418 laptop computers and 76 weapons were lost. According to the report:
Yesterday’s report showed that ATF, a much smaller agency than the FBI, had lost proportionately many more firearms and laptops. “It is especially troubling that that ATF’s rate of loss for weapons was nearly double that of the FBI and [Drug Enforcement Administration], and that ATF did not even know whether most of its lost, stolen, or missing laptop computers contained sensitive or classified information,” Fine wrote. […]
Many of the missing laptops contained sensitive or classified material, according to the report. ATF began installing encryption software only in May 2007. ATF did not know what information was on 398 of the 418 lost or stolen laptops. The report called the lack of such knowledge a “significant deficiency.” Of the 20 missing laptops for which information was available, ATF indicated that seven — 35 percent — held sensitive information. One missing laptop, for example, held “300-500 names with dates of birth and Social Security numbers of targets of criminal investigations, including their bank records with financial transactions.” Another held “employee evaluations, including Social Security numbers and other [personal information].” Neither laptop was encrypted.
The findings regarding lost weapons were equally troubling, if not a bit humorous:
Continue reading →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.