Can We Take the Plank Out of Our Eye First?

 

The following is from an interview of Congressman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin by Sean Duffy on Fox News:

TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. This is not a state-owned enterprise, but in China, no company is truly private. Under the country’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, all citizens and businesses are required to assist in intelligence work, which includes sharing data.

That’s not all. According to Forbes, LinkedIn profiles reveal that 23 of ByteDance’s directors previously worked for CCP propaganda outlets, and at least 15 ByteDance employees work for them now. Moreover, the company’s editor in chief, who also happens to be the secretary of its internal CCP committee, stressed that the committee would “take the lead” in “all product lines and business lines” to ensure that ByteDance’s products have “correct political direction.”

The company’s ownership of TikTok is problematic for two reasons. First, the app can track cellphone users’ locations and collect internet-browsing data — even when users are visiting unrelated websites.

That TikTok, and by extension the CCP, has the ability to survey every keystroke teenagers enter on their phones is disturbing. With this app, Beijing could also collect sensitive national security information from U.S. government employees and develop profiles on millions of Americans to use for blackmail or espionage.

Of course, TikTok denies that it would ever do such a thing. That’s hard to believe, however, in light of recent reporting in Forbes that ByteDance planned to use the app to monitor the locations of American citizens for undisclosed purposes unrelated to advertising.

I’m all for what Rep. Gallagher proposes. Are we not doing essentially the same thing domestically under authorities granted in the Patriot Act to our federal agencies? Haven’t we seen cooperation between federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies working with corporate entities like Meta (Facebook), Google, and Twitter data mining American citizens without justification?

Can we take care of all this with a single act?

Published in General
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 8 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Misthiocracy has never Member
    Misthiocracy has never
    @Misthiocracy

    Actually, there is a perverse logic to the double-standard.

    One could argue that the responsibility for protecting citizens from foreign surveillance falls on the national government, but the responsibility for protecting oneself from domestic surveillance falls on the individual because one cannot logically trust the national government to protect the individual from the national government.

    • #1
  2. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    Wasn’t one agency in the Fed government using TikTok employees as accounting supervisors? Or something similar?

    I was reading about this just a week or two ago. Either the tryptophan in the turkey or my 71 years on the planet are allowing the detailed memory of this situation to escape me.

    • #2
  3. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Hear, hear!  Big Tech is how our government fascism actually operates.

    • #3
  4. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Misthiocracy has never (View Comment):

    Actually, there is a perverse logic to the double-standard.

    One could argue that the responsibility for protecting citizens from foreign surveillance falls on the national government, but the responsibility for protecting oneself from domestic surveillance falls on the individual because one cannot logically trust the national government to protect the individual from the national government.

    And this is true because we have an unconstitutionally created national government instead of the federal government set forth in the Constitution.

    • #4
  5. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Still, this is and AND situation, rather than OR.

    • #5
  6. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    BDB (View Comment):

    Still, this is and AND situation, rather than OR.

    Yes

    • #6
  7. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    Hear! Hear! Big Tech is how government fascism actually operates.

    Correctomundo! You don’t think our bimbo bureaucrats could actually get it done? Do ya? Actually Apple and Google with their experience building China’s Social Credit System are the perfect government contractors to enslave us all in our new “Democracy” otherwise known as a Fascist Police State on digital steroids and they are so happy to do it to us!

    • #7
  8. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Unsk (View Comment):

    Hear! Hear! Big Tech is how government fascism actually operates.

    Correctomundo! You don’t think our bimbo bureaucrats could actually get it done? Do ya? Actually Apple and Google with their experience building China’s Social Credit System are the perfect government contractors to enslave us all in our new “Democracy” otherwise known as a Fascist Police State on digital steroids and they are so happy to do it to us!

    I fear this is exactly where we are. We have those on Ricochet arguing that Math is Hard but we should pay attention to the numbers. Why would anyone trust the numbers to be presented accurately under regimes as described here.

    • #8
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.