...the administration proposes to change the definition of “technical data” in such a way that mere public discussion of technical gun data–virtually identical to what you can find on any gunowner forum on the Internet–will be treated as a violation of federal weapons export laws. Second, the administration proposes to treat software itself as a “defense article,” a move that would put open source computer code in the same category as nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
In the very next section, the federal government informs us that information can only be considered in the “public domain” if the federal government, via unelected State Department bureaucrats, has issued a prior ruling declaring the information to be in the public domain. In other words, even if speech is obviously in the public domain, it doesn’t count as being in the public domain unless the federal government says so.
