IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019 - 75

and it cannot succumb to the wounds of defending,
then the corporation is immortal and can fight for anyone that they favor at the moment. If so, then the corporation has more similarities with the soldering
mercenary than the loyal citizen bestowed with gun
rights. If there is no risk, there is no investment in the
defense of liberty. A corporate death is the dissolution
of the corporation and liquidation of assets, often
through a non-restructuring bankruptcy. If a corporation is large enough to survive and sustain operations
after a failed cyber engagement, it cannot have Second
Amendment rights to access military-grade cyber weapons. Therefore, any larger corporation would be a U.S.
person, but would not meet the criteria to bear arms
under the Second Amendment. The larger corporation
is not a part of the social contract between the framers
of the Bill of Rights and, at the time, the political leadership of the United States of America and its states, as
well as the citizens of those states. The large corporation could instead be seen as a rich landowner who
wants to arm his subordinates and workers, creating a
private army within the nation-state, and not embody a
militiaman. The government could entrust larger corporations to own and utilize military-grade cyber weapons, but ownership is based on a unilateral decision by
the government and is not founded on the Second
Amendment.

Those Who Bear Arms are Loyal to the
United States of America
Loyalty to the United States of America is a qualifier for
the right to bear arms, and if not expressed at the individual level, then a corporation that forms a smaller
militia would not gain the right to own cyber weapons
unless its loyalty to the state is unquestionable. The
Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads as
follows: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the
security of a free state, the right of the people to keep
and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The militia is,
according to the framers of the Bill of Rights, "necessary
to the security of the free state." A defender and provider of security to the free state must be loyal to the state.
Otherwise, the right to bear arms would provide a right
to arm loyalists to the English Crown, and in the context
of contemporary America any group that wants to overthrow the American government or support enemies of
the state, as well.
In 1791, the United States had only eight years earlier
emerged as a free nation liberated through a rebellion
against a former colonial power that lasted seven years.
The American Revolution split families and communities. Friends became enemies as colonists chose either
to join the revolution or to support continued British
rule of the 13 colonies as loyalists to the Crown.
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Larger corporations also fail to meet
the loyalty requirement because
they operate in and have ties with
foreign countries.

The framers of the Bill of Rights sought to protect the
people from what they saw as oppression under British
rule. In the Second Amendment, a prerequisite is an
unquestionable loyalty to the newborn nation and its
states. The right to bear arms is reserved only for those
loyal to the new republic. The Bill of Rights catalogs what
the rebellious colonists considered wrong with British
rule and provided remedies to protect the rights of the
people of the new republic from abuse, tyranny, and
absence of the rule of law. The rationale for the Bill of
Rights is that it provided a legal foundation for securing
the freedom and liberty gained through the American revolution. As an example, the Third Amendment reads as
follows: "No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered
in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in
time of war but in a manner to be prescribed by law." The
Third Amendment is a safeguard against the British practice of quartering soldiers in civilian homes without providing compensation or seeking homeowners' consent.
Similarly, the Fourth Amendment states: "The right of
the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and
seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall
issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched and the persons or things to be seized." The
Fourth Amendment protects against the British practice
of arbitrarily and without any factual support conducting
searches and seizures of colonists' property and dwellings. The Fourth Amendment introduces probable
cause as a threshold for government intervention.
Larger corporations fail to meet the mortal requirement in the social contract between the militiamen and
the state, and also fail to meet the loyalty requirement
because they operate in and have ties with foreign countries; therefore, larger corporations, and especially multinational corporations, have no Second Amendment
right to own or use military-grade cyber weapons.
Therefore, only smaller, non-multinational corporations that can fail and be forced to dissolve and liquidate as a result of a cyber engagement can claim the
right to own and use military-grade cyber weapons
under the Second Amendment.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019