A bill introduced in the Senate designed to ban the video-sharing app TikTok would give the Biden administration sweeping authorities to crack down on transactions between people in the US and countries deemed “foreign adversaries” related to information and communication technology.
The Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act would authorize the Commerce Secretary “to review and prohibit certain transactions between persons in the United States and foreign adversaries, and for other purposes.”
TikTok is not mentioned by name in the bill, but its introduction comes as Congress is looking to ban the app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. The allegation is that since TikTok is Chinese-owned, it’s obligated to share user data with the Chinese government and can be used as a spying tool, similar to how the FBI and NSA have backdoor access to data from Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other US tech platforms.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew denied the allegations when he was grilled by Congress last week and said China has not asked the company to share American data. But there is still strong bipartisan support for banning TikTok, and the RESTRICT ACT, which was led by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), has 21 cosponsors, including 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats.
The White House has also expressed support for the bill. In a statement on March 7, the day the legislation was introduced, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the White House “applauds” the effort. “We look forward to continue working with both Democrats and Republicans on this bill, and urge Congress to act quickly to send it to the President’s desk,” he said.
The RESTRICT ACT would authorize Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to take action against any transaction between a person in the US and a foreign adversary that she determines poses a risk to US national security. The bill names six foreign adversaries: China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba.
The legislation would allow Raimondo, in coordination with the US Director of National Intelligence, to “designate any foreign government or regime as a foreign adversary.”
A person who violates the act could be fined up to $1 million or punished with up to 20 years in prison. The broad and vague definitions in the legislation caused many to wonder if people could be handed such harsh punishments for using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to get around future government censorship that could come as a result of the bill.
A spokesperson for Warner insisted that the legislation wasn’t designed to target individual users and pointed to the language that says someone “must be engaged in ‘sabotage or subversion’ of American communications technology products and services, creating ‘catastrophic effects’ on US critical infrastructure, or ‘interfering in, or altering the result’ of a federal election, in order to be eligible for any kind of criminal penalty.”
But the bill will give the Commerce Secretary the authority to deem what is considered “sabotage or subversion” or any of the other threats listed above. The legislation has grave implications for civil liberties and could be used against any individuals or tech and media companies the Biden administration, or any future administration would want to target.
The bipartisan war parties have teamed up for censorship. What First Amendment? Better ban a video app that 100 million + Americans use because of fake “national security” reasons. With their logic, they can literally go on to ban every website they don’t like and shut them down, including anti war sites for the same
“‘national security” BS. I’ve never seen free speech attacked so blatantly … Let’s hope the Supreme Court still have enough rational people on it to strike the law down…
Far the largest offender, Israel, will remain untouchable.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Anybody see anything in the above about “adversary” exceptions to freedom of speech? No? Well, then, this whole thing is unconstitutional, no?
As the Democrat party always does, it will take this and exploit it way beyond what any honest reading of the text would allow. They do that against Douglas Mackey, now prosecuted because they hate him for his efficient Tweet account before the 2016 election. They single out a few posts he made with the joke that Dem voters could call a number to vote – posts that they won’t even allege prevented anyone from voting. And note how they don’t prosecute direct death threats tweeted by leftists.
Douglas Mackey is now prosecuted and threatened with prison time under an old law that is never used, which was written to prosecute anyone who used direct force to prevent someone from voting. Like if you stopped them on the road there, or burned down the poll station.
Revolver News has written extensively about this, and how a witness (someone else posting on Twitter) for the defense was threatened. “Does your employer know you are here testifying for Douglas Mackey?” The witness then withdrew his testimony out of fear of being doxed and targeted.
This place called America has gone nuts. So it goes.