The 2nd Amendment And Hacking

Our founding fathers, as stated in countless quotes provided down the tract of time, intended for the 2nd Amendment to be unfettered. All citizens had access to all weapons that were in existence. The assumption was that since they exist, they would be used. And if they would be used, all citizens must have access to ensure their future liberty from an oppressive government.

We have strayed from this path horribly, to the point that our government has funded its own militia preferentially over that of The Peoples Militia. Along the way it has armed their own Standing Army with elaborate weapons, while denying access to these weapons to The People. We could ague the benefits, or lack thereof, of anyone having access to a nuclear warhead. But that is irrelevant in the context of the meaning and intent of our founders, as their intent was to prevent The People from having to overthrow its well armed government with nothing but sticks and stones.

A result of this preferential arming, and subsequent control of weapons against the "regular citizen", the 2nd Amendment has been essentially negated in the theater of traditional war. However....


...these are new times. And traditional theaters are a nostalgic approach. The modern theater of war has generally become the electronic theater. And we are seeing both nationally and privately sponsored hackers taking up arms.

Which brings up an interesting point: it seems that hacking could be considered as a modern use of the 2nd Amendment right. Obviously, when you use your 2nd Amendment on private citizens, the lawful ramifications are clear: you are accountable for the damages caused to them and their property.

But when used against a corrupt government, the use of 2nd Amendment rights becomes a patriotic act.

And there is precedence for the concept of hacking being a "taking up arms". When they talk about China or someone else trying to hack the US Government, they call it "electronic warfare" or and "electronic attack". The context of information warfare being true warfare provides the impetus for the contextualization of hacking being the taking up arms of "rebels" seeking to bring about various revolutions. If these revolutions represent the will of the people within Natural Law, then they are obviously "Patriots" in the classical sense of the term.

Regardless, I wanted to throw this philosophical concept out there for the consideration oft he masses of ATS.

I was hoping for a little input on this. I realized that the title may not provide any insight as to the content, and have updated the thread title.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


I don't think so.. It's one thing to own a gun, another to shoot at a federal building. same thing with hacking .. if you call it a second amendment right, consider it a weapon, then authorize the use it's essentially the same as ... shooting someone.

I put hacking in the same category as vandalism for the most part. There are some who hack to get a message across and or to make a point. And while I might agree with what they are saying, it doesn't mean that it should be a protected "right".

reply to post by Rockpuck


Well....i don't think the 2nd Amendment, in the way it was intended, could ever truly be a protected right. The job of any institution is to ensure its own survivial.

But when we discuss this from the perspective of morality, which seems to be a major part of the discussion, we can have the luxury of applying the concept of "right" to this discussion. It is more about those who proclaim some low level of morality behind the very concept of hacking.

The same folks tend to find other types of civil disobedience to be illegal, and therefore immoral. It may just be this linking of morality with legality that is so bothersome here.

Interesting concept!

However, let me use a simile to illustrate my thinking...

gun is to computer, as firing gun is to hacking.

You see, we have a right to bear arms (in your scenario; a right to computers). However, we do not have a right to recklessly discharge our firearms in a deliberately hurtful/damaging manner (in you scenario, hacking). Now, one could argue that you are allowed to discharge your firearm with intent to injure, IF you are in immediate grave danger....I suppose the same could be said of hacking.

I think that if one were to defend their hacking actions, against a corrupt government, by citing the 2nd Amendment, then one had damn well hope that they were on the winning end of that "war", as I don't think anyone would ever be able to pull off that argument in a court of law otherwise. But hey, if one was on the winning end, then they would never be brought up on charges anyhow, huh?


Nonetheless, great job thinking outside the box.

reply to post by Aggie Man


Hacking, when used offensively, would only be "lawful" (in the scope of natural law and 2nd Amendment law) if it was done to attack a corrupt government. We currently have a corrupt government.

Of course i realize that you could not pull it off in court. The courts are set up to promote the legality enforced by the very corrupt government that the hacker is attacking.

My corrected simply analogy:

owning a computer = owning a gun (or any other potential weapon)
using that computer to hack = using the gun in the manner of a weapon
hacking a corrupt government = patriotism

Of course the courts will call your actions treasonous, as will the "dittoheads" (i like that term but don't like its association to Rush) who think our government is acting prudently and lawfully (not to be confused with "legally").

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


The difference between owning a weapon and hacking though is that hacking DOES cause harm to the victim. Whether it's a credit card processor or a the Federal Government, hacking has a direct effect on someone. Especially when information is released or stolen.

I'd like to throw a brick through a bank window, in a symbolic expression of anger and malcontent... but if we all started throwing bricks at windows it's not a very civilized society.

And to consider hacking a corrupt government lawful, the Government must in fact see its self as being corrupt .. which would never happen. Since Government is the law. We might view it as a good thing, but surely the Government wouldn't.

And of course if it's a corrupt government I should have the legal right to use any weapon against them, but the Government would never recognize my right to destroy them.....

reply to post by Rockpuck


Lawful - following natural law

Legal - related to the corporate code

For something to be lawful does not require a legal authority to authorize it.

Civil disobedience may not represent a civilized soceity. But the tenor for that is set by our government, not ourselves.

In any attack on a government, and individual is harmed. However, hacking is not shooting and seems to be preferrable to actual armed revolt. Besides, like i said, the chance of armed revolt is nil based on the unlawful AND illegal Standing Army.

hacking is either

trespassing, likely with the intent to steal, or

destruction of another's property

in my eyes

there is plenty of views on hackin in this thread, tho i dont rly support hacking, furrytexan does have a good view, hackin does do damage to servers/site like guns do to people, but on a less destructive force. servers have defenses and backups where as humans do not. human gets shot, has better chance of dying. server/site gets hacked, upload back up sql database and files if needed. both can take damage, but saving files is easier then saving a human.

if need be, that 2nd amendment should be true, even with hacking.

Originally posted by Thatoneguy
hacking is either

trespassing, likely with the intent to steal, or

destruction of another's property

in my eyes

edit on 12-9-2011 by Thatoneguy because: elaboration

You are exactly correct. It is trespassing or theft. Or just outright destruction.

So here is the rub: when the property belongs to all of us, The People (as all governmental property does), then we are not dealing with the rights of the individual. Our government doesn't have rights, only individuals do.

Something to consider for any who have yet to read the great work by Thoreau:

Civil Disobedience

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is that fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

We have a duty to act. It is our God given right, if you want to see it that way. Otherwise, it is a duty that we have to both our future and our past. Our past because of the sacrifices they made along the way. Our future because they should not pay the interest on our cowardice.

Meek does not mean Weak. It is time The People realize this.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


All the 2nd Amendment represented was cheap ass defense spending. People were permitted firearms so that the government wouldn't have to buy them in the event of a conflict. End of story.

reply to post by lunatux


You seem to not understand what an "unalienable right" is. The government does not "permit" me to have a gun. They do not have the authority to grant me what was already granted me by the sheer fact that I was created. The right to defend one self from attack is a basic right, be it human or any other animal.

Any government that stifles ownership of weaponry that said government would use against The People is a tyranny. The United States included.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


The only three inalienable rights cited were those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and they are in the Declaration of Independence not the Constitution.

I stand by my analysis. The fledgling Federal government didn't want to go broke from buying muskets for the troops. They assumed all free men had weapons since the country was still pretty wild.

The way I read the constitution one does not have a "right" to keep and bear arms unless one is a member of a militia which in our day would, not be some group of middle aged white nutballs dressed in ill fitting camis with cardboard license plates, but rather the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps or Air Force. And nowadays the armed forces issue the member the weapon so that second amendment has been rendered obsolescent.

But there is nothing in the constitution that says a fella cannot own one gun or a hundred. There are court cases that make a distinction between civilian weapons and weapons of war such that owning an A-bomb is illegal. I find such cases to be correctly decided.

So enjoy your guns and hit what you aim at.

Originally posted by lunatux
reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

 

The only three inalienable rights cited were those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and they are in the Declaration of Independence not the Constitution.

I stand by my analysis. The fledgling Federal government didn't want to go broke from buying muskets for the troops. They assumed all free men had weapons since the country was still pretty wild.

The way I read the constitution one does not have a "right" to keep and bear arms unless one is a member of a militia which in our day would, not be some group of middle aged white nutballs dressed in ill fitting camis with cardboard license plates, but rather the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps or Air Force. And nowadays the armed forces issue the member the weapon so that second amendment has been rendered obsolescent.

But there is nothing in the constitution that says a fella cannot own one gun or a hundred. There are court cases that make a distinction between civilian weapons and weapons of war such that owning an A-bomb is illegal. I find such cases to be correctly decided.

So enjoy your guns and hit what you aim at.

edit on 9/27/2011 by lunatux because: (no reason given)

It has been ruled, and opined about, that all able bodied males above legal age are 'militia". That means me, and my oldest son are "militia" in the sense implied within the Constitution.

It is the duty of each American to guarantee against tyranny. Thus, all of us are militiamen in the sense of the 2nd Amendment.

It has been ruled...

Who ruled? Where can the ruling be found? On what governing authority is the ruling based?

...all able bodied males above legal age are 'militia'

This is not the current state of United States Law. Militia today is interpreted as a United States Armed Force or component thereof. So to be a member of the militia you have to be eligible to serve in the armed forces and actually be inducted into the U. S. military and have an active or reserve duty status. Moreover, today the militia would include female members of the US military as well.

That means me, and my oldest son are "militia" in the sense implied within the Constitution.

No I am afraid not. The constitution defines the structure of the United States government. There can be no constitutional "militia" extent OUTSIDE of the government so formed. You may well belong to an armed vigilance society that refers to itself as a militia and confers upon itself bogus quasi governmental powers that have no standing in law. But for you and your son to be militia in the sense of the constitution you must be active or reserve duty members of the U.S. Military.

It is the duty of each American to guarantee against tyranny

As good as this idea is, no article or amendment of the constitution, act of Congress, or act of any state legislature lays such a duty on the citizenry. The general American practice has been to guarantee against tyranny not by taking up arms but rather by participating in the political process. When we elect good people and throw the bums out of office, we guarantee against tyranny.

Thus, all of us are militiamen in the sense of the 2nd Amendment.

Proceeding from the debunk arguments made above, it is clear almost none of us are militiamen in the sense of the 2nd Amendment.

reply to post by lunatux


I didn't make this up. It was the Judiciary Committee headed by Strom Thurmond:

Such a reading fails to note that the Framers used the term "militia" to relate to every citizen capable of bearing arms, and that the Congress has established the present National Guard under its own power to raise armies, expressly stating that it was not doing so under its power to organize and arm the militia.

Link


You can use whatever personal definitions of words/phrases that you want. Just be aware that the common use of those may vary from your own use.