Code Is Speech - Unless It Makes Guns, Your Deleted Videos Aren't Deleted, and 40 Million People's Water Supply Is Up for Grabs
February 17, 2026
1. A Federal Court Just Ruled That Computer Code Isn’t Speech (If It Makes Guns)
The Third Circuit ruled last Wednesday that digital files for 3D-printed firearms are not protected speech under the First Amendment. The unanimous decision in Defense Distributed v. Attorney General of New Jersey upheld New Jersey’s 2018 law criminalizing the distribution of CAD files that can be used to print firearm components.
Defense Distributed, the Texas company founded by Cody Wilson that has spent a decade fighting to publish printable gun designs online, argued that code is speech. Federal courts have agreed with that premise before. The Ninth Circuit ruled in Bernstein v. DOJ (1999) that encryption source code is protected expression. The Second Circuit reached a similar conclusion about encryption software in Universal City Studios v. Corley.
The Third Circuit didn’t exactly disagree. Judge Cheryl Ann Krause’s opinion acknowledged that some code qualifies as expression, but drew a new distinction: source code (human-readable) can be expressive, while object code (machine-readable instructions that directly operate a 3D printer) is functional, not communicative. Since Defense Distributed’s files are designed to be fed into a printer, not read by a person, they’re closer to a machine instruction than a political pamphlet.
The Second Amendment Foundation called the ruling an attack on both the First and Second Amendments. “Today’s ruling goes against prior courts which have ruled code is indeed speech, creating a new test that seems to have been prompted by this panel’s disfavor of firearms,” said SAF’s Bill Sack.
The same week, the full Third Circuit heard en banc arguments in a separate case challenging New Jersey’s “sensitive places” law, which bans concealed carry in parks, zoos, libraries, theaters, stadiums, and dozens of other public locations. During oral arguments on February 11, even some sympathetic judges pressed New Jersey’s attorney on whether the state’s approach had any limiting principle. Attorney Daniel Schmutter, representing gun owners, argued that the law effectively bans carry “everywhere people want to go,” nullifying the right the Supreme Court recognized in Bruen.
Two cases, one court, one week. The Third Circuit is drawing the boundaries of the Second Amendment for 100 million people in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands. The 3D printing decision will almost certainly be appealed. The sensitive places ruling could land at the Supreme Court. Both will shape whether the right to keep and bear arms means anything beyond keeping a pistol locked in your nightstand.
Sources: AmmoLand, The Reload, Bearing Arms, Reason, Courthouse News
2. Google Kept Your “Deleted” Doorbell Video. The FBI Got It.
When Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her Virginia home on February 1, investigators initially said there was no video because her Nest doorbell camera wasn’t on a paid plan. Google’s free tier only stores three hours of event history. After that, clips are “deleted.”
Ten days later, the FBI released doorbell footage showing a masked individual tampering with the camera. Google had recovered the video from what investigators described as “residual data located in backend systems.”
Translation: Google keeps your video after telling you it’s gone.
The company’s own support pages state that expired videos “are no longer available” and “cannot be restored.” Yet when the FBI came knocking, engineers retrieved footage that was supposedly deleted more than a week earlier. Google hasn’t explained how long this “residual data” persists, whether it applies to all Nest cameras, or what other data it retains after telling users it’s been erased.
Privacy researchers immediately flagged the implications. “We should absolutely be alarmed over the privacy implications,” Georgetown Law’s Laura Dahl told Fortune. Every American with a Nest doorbell, a Ring camera, or any cloud-connected device now has reason to wonder: when a tech company says your data is deleted, what does “deleted” actually mean?
In this case, the footage helped investigators in a genuine abduction. Nobody is rooting against finding Nancy Guthrie. But the principle cuts both ways. If Google retains video it claims to delete, that video is available to any government agency with a subpoena, a warrant, or (as we’ve seen with ICE’s administrative subpoenas) sometimes just a strongly worded letter.
Sources: Ars Technica, NBC News, Fortune, Inc.
3. Judges Ruled 4,400 Times That ICE Is Jailing People Illegally. ICE Kept Jailing Them.
A Reuters review of court records found that more than 400 federal judges have ruled at least 4,400 times since October that ICE is detaining people unlawfully. The administration’s response: keep doing it.
The core dispute is straightforward. For nearly 30 years, federal law was interpreted to allow immigrants already living in the U.S. to request release on bond while their cases moved through immigration court. The Trump administration unilaterally reinterpreted that law to deny bond hearings entirely, holding people indefinitely.
Judges across the political spectrum have called the policy illegal. U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston, a George W. Bush appointee in West Virginia, wrote last week: “It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written.”
The scale is staggering. Detained immigrants have filed more than 20,200 federal lawsuits seeking release since Trump took office. ICE detention now holds roughly 68,000 people, up 75% from when Trump was inaugurated. The government has deployed about 700 Justice Department attorneys just to represent itself in these cases, and the sheer volume threatens to clog the federal court system.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin dismissed the rulings as the work of “activist judges.” One conservative appeals court in New Orleans did side with the administration last week, ruling 2-1 that prior administrations simply hadn’t used all available authority. Other appellate courts are set to weigh in soon.
When the executive branch openly ignores thousands of court orders from hundreds of judges, the question stops being about immigration policy. It becomes about whether the rule of law means anything at all.
Sources: Reuters, Newsweek, MPR News
4. Seven States Failed to Agree on Water. Now the Feds Take Over.
The seven states that share the Colorado River missed their second federal deadline on Saturday to agree on how to divide the water after current rules expire at the end of 2026. The Bureau of Reclamation will now likely impose a plan, or broker one under heavy federal pressure.
This isn’t abstract. The Colorado River provides drinking water for 40 million people and irrigates farmland that produces a significant share of America’s winter vegetables. It feeds Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, and Salt Lake City. Lake Mead and Lake Powell are barely one-third full. Snowpack in the mountains is running well below average.
The split is between the Lower Basin states (California, Arizona, Nevada) and the Upper Basin states (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico). The Lower Basin offered cuts: Arizona would reduce its allocation by 27%, California by 10%, Nevada by nearly 17%. The Upper Basin states said they were already preparing for 40% cuts to their proven water rights, but wouldn’t agree to make them mandatory. Upper Basin negotiators accused their downstream neighbors of “seeking to secure water that simply does not exist.”
The first deadline was November 11. It passed. The second was February 14. Also missed. With no agreement, the federal government steps in, and “federal management” of water resources has a long history of prioritizing political considerations over the people who actually depend on the river.
Forty million people’s taps depend on bureaucrats in Washington figuring out what seven states couldn’t. Feel good about that?
Sources: Reuters, Courthouse News, Nevada News & Views
5. The House Passed a Voting Law. Trump Says He’ll Do It by Executive Order Anyway.
The House passed the SAVE America Act on Wednesday, 217-212, with every Republican and one Democrat voting yes. The bill would require Americans to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and present photo ID at the polls. It would also require states to run their voter rolls through DHS databases to scan for noncitizens.
All provisions take effect immediately upon enactment.
The bill faces a near-certain death in the Senate, where the filibuster means it needs 60 votes in a chamber with 53 Republicans. Some GOP senators want to force Democrats into a literal talking filibuster to pass it with a simple majority, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t encouraging that approach.
Trump, apparently tired of waiting for the legislative process, posted Friday: “There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem echoed the sentiment, boasting about ensuring “the right people” are voting.
The bill solves a problem that barely exists. Noncitizen voting is already a federal crime, and studies consistently find it occurs at negligible rates. What the bill would do is create a paperwork barrier for millions of eligible American voters who don’t have a passport or birth certificate handy. An estimated 21 million voting-age citizens lack government-issued photo ID. They tend to be older, poorer, and disproportionately rural.
But the bigger story is the executive order threat. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, authority over federal election law (Article I, Section 4). If a president can impose voting requirements by executive order, he can also remove them, change them, or tailor them to favor his party. The power to set the rules of elections is the power to choose who wins them. That’s not a power any single person should hold, regardless of party.