There is a First Amendment right to speak in a encrypted way.... The right to speak P.G.P. is like the right to speak Navajo. The Government has no particular right to prevent you from speaking in a technical manner even if it is inconvenient for them to understand.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of the right to communicate privately using encryption, equating it with the right to use a language unrecognized by the government.
Eben Moglen argues that encryption is a crucial form of expression and communication, akin to speaking a language that is not understood by the government. By invoking the First Amendment, he asserts that individuals possess the fundamental right to communicate in ways that may not be easily understood by authorities, highlighting the significance of privacy and technical speech in a democratic society.
In practice
During a conference on digital rights, one might quote Moglen to advocate for stronger encryption laws.
The great moral question of the twenty-first century is this: if all knowledge, all culture, all art, all useful information can be costlessly given to everyone at the same price that it is given to anyone; if everyone can have everything, anywhere, all the time, why is it ever moral to exclude anyone?
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Why commit technological suicide by restricting the flow of talent into the United States?
The internet, Facebook and Twitter have created mass communications and social spaces that regimes cannot control.
A breakthrough in machine learning would be worth ten Microsofts.
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