Bernstein v. United States is a set of court cases brought by Daniel J. Bernstein challenging restrictions on the export of encryption software outside the United States.

The case was first brought in 1995, when Bernstein was a student at University of California, Berkeley, and wanted to publish a paper and associated source code on his Snuffle encryption system. Bernstein was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who hired outside lawyer Cindy Cohn. After four years and one regulatory change, the court case won a landmark decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, that software source code was speech protected by the First Amendment and that the government's regulations preventing its publication were unconstitutional. http://www.epic.org/crypto/export_controls/bernstein_decision_9_cir.html

The government modified the regulations again, substantially loosening them, and Bernstein, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, challenged them again. This time, he chose to represent himself, although he has no formal legal training. On October 15, 2003, almost nine years since Bernstein first brought the case, the judge dismissed it and asked Bernstein to come back when the government made a "concrete threat". http://cr.yp.to/export/status.html

References

• Bernstein v. United States Dept. of Justice, 192 F.3d 1308 (9th Cir. 1999) (order that case be reheard en banc)
• Bernstein v. DOC, 2004 U.S. Dist. 6672 (N.D. Cal. April 19, 2004)

See also

• Export of cryptography
• Junger v. Daley

External links

• Bernstein's website on the case
• Netlitigation Summary: Bernstein v. U.S. Dept. of State
• EPIC Archive of 9th Circuit Decision
• EFF Archive of the Cases