"in really big cities nobody drives because there's so much traffic".
Have you actually thought about that statement? If no one drives, what exactly is all that traffic? Or do you believe that there are millions of driverless cars wandering around on the streets out there?
Top recorded speed of a Nissan GTR: 195 mph (Nissan estimates 193 mph top speed). Top speed of a Lotus Elise: 148 mph. Also, note the phrase "The firm intends to enter the vehicle into next year's Le Mans 24 race" in the summary. It looks like a Le Mans car because that's what it's meant to be.
This is not a right of the states, though. The Constitution states that "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State." Thus, if you have been married in one state, every other state must recognize your marriage - that's the "full credit".
Further, it states that "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." That is, no state can choose to take away the rights that the states in general have agreed that citizens have.
The states in ratifying the Constitution agreed to these terms. They gave up certain rights in order to join the Union. It's no different from a person entering a binding contract - the states have to play by the rules they agreed to.
DOMA attempts to say that the states don't have to obey these provisions of the Constitution when it comes to marriage. The people putting DOMA forward seem to have forgotten that the Constitution overrides any contradictory law, and the only way around that is to amend it.
I can't speak to the logic behind it, but yes, that's equally illegal. The FCC regulations say that anything designed to "obscure the meaning" of communication is prohibited on amateur radio.
It's been generally held, though, that secure authentication is okay - the meaning there is "prove you are who you say you are", "this is my proof", "okay, accepted" (or "sorry, rejected"). As long as it's possible to tell that that's the gist of the communication, obscuring what one would need to know to prove it is okay.
That's about exporting encryption. It has nothing to do with amateur radio. For that, you need to check out FCC title 47 CFR, part 97. That says that anything that "obscures the meaning" of communication is not allowed unless specifically stated in part 97.
That doesn't mean everything has to be plaintext, though. It's been generally held that secure authentication methods are okay, for example. Thus, you can use challenge-response authentication, public key authentication, or other such things, even though those involve encryption. In such a case, the actual meaning of the communication is: "prove you are who you say you are", followed by "here's my proof".
It'll be interesting to see if the FCC will allow it. I do agree with you, though, that it's foolish to fight against allowing encryption; if the government doesn't want to allow it, they simply won't. It's well established in US law that being able to communicate via amateur radio is not a right - if it were, amateur radio operators wouldn't have to be licensed.
You might want to re-read the article. He was arrested in Saipan, with is an island in the Pacific... and a US Territory. Thus, he was arrested by the US, for selling to US citizens while on US soil.
Basically, he got greedy and decided the potential gain was worth the risk that it was a set-up, and bet wrongly.
The monster that was created against the foes of both World Wars has turned against the society that created it. It's become the reason for its own existence.
As Orwell put it, "The object of power is power."
Hackers of the world, unite!