Amazon removes 3D-printed gun code
‘Book’ of digital blueprints barred in latest fight over 1st, 2nd amendments
One day after a federal judge ordered Defense Distributed to remove its online repository of plastic, 3D-printable gun blueprints from the Internet, at least one such blueprint appeared somewhere else: inside a book.
A 584-page book contained computer code that could be copied and then theoretically fed to a 3D printer for the creation of a plastic pistol called The Liberator — the exact computer code the federal judge blocked Defense Distributed from publishing through a temporary restraining order July 31. The book was titled “The Liberator Code Book: An Exercise in the Freedom of Speech.”
And then, on Aug. 1, the book was put up for sale on Amazon, an apparent attempt to circumvent the judge’s order.
“Code is speech,” the apparent author, “CJ Awelow,” wrote in a brief description on Amazon, echoing the legal argument made by Defense Distributed. “Proceeds will be used to fight for free speech and the right to bear arms.”
Show of solidarity
The free speech exercise didn’t last long. Amazon removed the book Wednesday for “violating our content guidelines,” a spokesman confirmed to The Washington Post. He declined to elaborate on exactly what guidelines the book violated or whether the decision to remove it was related to the temporary restraining order. (Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.)
Though it was shortlived, the stunt served as yet another showing of solidarity with Defense Distributed amid its ongoing legal battle against more than a dozen states, which argue the publication of code to produce downloadable, 3D-printable weapons is a public safety risk. The states argue the plastic guns, which are without serial numbers and therefore untraceable, would skirt various gun regulations. But Defense Distributed and its supporters argue that blocking the computer code for the weapons amounts to a First Amendment violation — whether that code is published on the Internet or, for example, in a book on Amazon.
“We don’t err on the side of censorship in this country,” Defense Distributed’s founder, Cody Wilson, a self-described anarchist, recently told The Washington Post.
Wilson’s arguments will be put to test as soon as Monday, when U.S. District Court Judge Robert S. Lasnik in Seattle is expected to decide whether to issue an injunction against Defense Distributed’s online 3Dprintable gun blueprints. The states are seeking a permanent injunction. The states have also sued the State Department, arguing that a recent settlement agreement between the department and Defense Distributed that allowed the 3D-printed gun files to be posted to the Internet in the first place violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The agreement resulted from prior litigation.
It’s not a clear-cut case, experts told The Post. Lasnik will have to weigh whether the states’ public safety concerns are strong enough to trump Wilson’s First Amendment protections. To do that, the judge would also have to decide whether Wilson’s computer code really is “speech” — a largely unsettled legal question that may challenge the boundaries of the First Amendment as it is traditionally understood.
Disruptive technology
Neil Richards, a professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis specializing in information law, told The Post that asking a judge to decide a question of whether code acts as speech could present collateral consequences as technology continues to evolve. Because our world revolves so heavily around digital code, he said, “asking if code is speech is like asking if everything is speech,” which the First Amendment was not designed for, he said.
“What this case shows is that digital technologies are asking questions of constitutional law that don’t have clear answers,” he said. “This is just another illustration of the fact that digital technologies don’t just destabilize or disrupt industries, they destabilize and disrupt settled legal expectations, and they require us to think carefully about how we apply the law to technology.”
On Tuesday, Lasnik said he believed “a solution to the greater problem” in this case was better suited for Congress or the president to answer, rather than the court.