It will come as little surprise to anyone that I’m disturbed by the Minnesota ruling that having encryption software can be an aggravating factor in determining guilt. The Shout opines that this is an over-reductive statement, and that it was the encryption software in conjunction with research into penal law that triggered the ruling.

Call me less than mollified. I’m not sure how one can call it a free society if there is anything negative attached to researching the laws that govern us. I’ve done extensive research into kiddie porn law myself, first as a grad student in Communications (where a friend was looking into doing his thesis on it; he decided that another topic would be healthier), then as a civil liberties advocate.

Oh, and I have encryption software on my computer. So do you, if you bought your computer recently. Perhaps you don’t use it (I do), but it’s there, and with Mac OS X you can use it without even being much aware of it.

We’re not talking here about “not having anything to hide”. We’re talking here about your right to have something to hide, for your own purposes, for whatever reasons. You can go your entire life without having anything you want to hide, but without abdicating that right. It makes a huge difference to our freedom if we lose the ability to choose to hide something.