"The purpose of many of the founders in passing the Second Amendment was to make sure that if all other defenses against tyranny failed, the civilian population of the United States could outgun the standing army. And I think that was a very clever idea; that they recognized that legal protections are all very well but they are only words on paper, and if things get bad enough what you want to do is not to make government doing certain things illegal but impossible. That protection I don't think works very well at the end of the 20th century for lots of reasons. I think, however, that unregulated strong encryption provides the equivalent of that for the 21st century; that if we have conflicts with our government and if other people with their government, they are going to be fought mostly with words and with ideas and not weapons. And what unregulated strong encryption gives you is a world where the government... is physically incapable of suppressing freedom of speech. And it seems to me that getting that world is worth a pretty high price." -- David D. Friedman