Remember when it was illegal to export strong cryptography from the US? There was no law to restrict that, so they just made something up. It basically went like this:
Problem: we can't make cryptography exports (software exports) illegal
-> what actually IS illegal to export?
-> munitions!
-> let's just declare that cryptography is "munitions"
Problem: we can't make cryptography exports (software exports) illegal
-> what actually IS illegal to export?
-> munitions!
-> let's just declare that cryptography is "munitions"
-> problem solved
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...