This TikTok Bill Guts the First Amendment — Bad and Worse

 

We interrupt the Next Big War to bring you this “RESTRICT” Bill, which will spell the end of free speech.  Think it’s bad?  It’s worse than that.  I haven’t had a chance to sit down and look at it — it’s awful enough from what bits I have seen.

There’s no way it’s Constitutional, but that is NO LONGER A DEFENSE.  Our inventive Supreme Court will let this thing fly with a mere haircut, but it needs burning instead.  Seriously, the sons of bitches who introduced this piece of trash should be censured.  At best.

The war in Ukraine is not a big deal the way this is, and this is not just another in a line of (admittedly disastrous) spending increases.  This is a bill to end free speech, to grant the government-wide and vicious powers of policing speech (and any digital communications, like banking), with “adversaries of the United States” to be determined not by Congress, but by some flunkies in Homeland Security or the intel community.

This is the government throwing off its pretense at rights and liberty — this guts the First Amendment and replaces it with “as the Secretary may determine,” and “not to exceed twenty years or one million dollars” throughout.

This is big and it’s about to happen in the name of banning TikTok.  The way I see it, the government knows it has gotten out over its skis on domestic surveillance and the establishment of a state-within-a-state.  This will justify what it can, and ruthlessly defend what cannot be justified.  Nobody cares what you think from prison, thought-criminal.

Why?  The way I see it, government hates competition.  We are their serfs to command, not China’s.  Thanks but no thanks, Stalin.  Seriously — Solzhenitsyn himself is about to come shoot fireballs at us in rage and despair.

From the marksmen at Vice:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3ddb/restrict-act-insanely-broad-ban-tiktok-vpns

From Reason:

https://reason.com/2023/03/29/could-the-restrict-act-criminalize-the-use-of-vpns/

Fox News:

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6323614622112

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  1. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    It will end mean tweets! 

     

    • #1
  2. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    The key thing to watch here is the Patriot Act.  Reasonable-enough sounding provisions were taken to unreasonable extremes.  Why?  Because they could.

    When this bill says “ANY”, and it says that a lot, think of the unreasonable interpretations that could be made.  THAT is the weapon that our intel/security state fascists will strike us with.

    • #2
  3. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    You don’t honestly believe the government would lie to us about what is in a bill or how they intend to subjugate defend us? When has the government not lied to us?

    • #3
  4. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    BDB (View Comment):

    The key thing to watch here is the Patriot Act. Reasonable-enough sounding provisions were taken to unreasonable extremes. Why? Because they could.

    When this bill says “ANY”, and it says that a lot, think of the unreasonable interpretations that could be made. THAT is the weapon that out intel/security state fascists will strike us with.

    I agree with all of that. But, honest question: why do you support these people (and it’s the same people) and their actions in Ukraine with the constant stream of lies they are feeding us about the nature of Ukraine, the stakes in Ukraine, what we can realistically do in Ukraine, that we are winning in Ukraine? Ukraine is a money laundering operation that helps these people maintain their power. The good news is: they cannot do their will throughout the world anymore and that provides opportunities for freedom. 

    • #4
  5. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Hang On (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    The key thing to watch here is the Patriot Act. Reasonable-enough sounding provisions were taken to unreasonable extremes. Why? Because they could.

    When this bill says “ANY”, and it says that a lot, think of the unreasonable interpretations that could be made. THAT is the weapon that out intel/security state fascists will strike us with.

    I agree with all of that. But, honest question: why do you support these people (and it’s the same people) and their actions in Ukraine with the constant stream of lies they are feeding us about the nature of Ukraine, the stakes in Ukraine, what we can realistically do in Ukraine, that we are winning in Ukraine? Ukraine is a money laundering operation that helps these people maintain their power. The good news is: they cannot do their will throughout the world anymore and that provides opportunities for freedom.

    Separate issue. Discussed at length elsewhere. 

    • #5
  6. Hoyacon Member
    Hoyacon
    @Hoyacon

    Text.

    • #6
  7. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    From the Reason article:

    Warner’s office says this isn’t so. Spokesperson Rachel Cohen told Newsweek that the provisions only apply when someone is “engaged in ‘sabotage or subversion’ of communications technology in the U.S., causing ‘catastrophic effects’ on U.S. critical infrastructure, or ‘interfering in, or altering the result’ of a federal election in order for criminal penalties to apply.” The RESTRICT Act targets “companies like Kaspersky, Huawei and TikTok … not individual users,” she said.

    Here’s an idea. If the RESTRICT act targets certain companies, how about writing the act to target those companies and only those companies, as Josh Hawley originally intended with his bill earlier this year.  

    On the other hand, maybe we should relax.  When the Russian Duma granted more powers to Vladimir Biden to regulate the internet in Russia, that doesn’t mean he immediately used those powers to restrict speech and communication for political purposes.  It took a while, and he still hasn’t banned YouTube.  So in the meantime perhaps we shouldn’t worry so much. 

    • #7
  8. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    From the Reason article:

    Warner’s office says this isn’t so. Spokesperson Rachel Cohen told Newsweek that the provisions only apply when someone is “engaged in ‘sabotage or subversion’ of communications technology in the U.S., causing ‘catastrophic effects’ on U.S. critical infrastructure, or ‘interfering in, or altering the result’ of a federal election in order for criminal penalties to apply.” The RESTRICT Act targets “companies like Kaspersky, Huawei and TikTok … not individual users,” she said.

    Here’s an idea. If the RESTRICT act targets certain companies, how about writing the act to target those companies and only those companies, as Josh Hawley originally intended with his bill earlier this year.

    On the other hand, maybe we should relax. When the Russian Duma granted more powers to Vladimir Biden to regulate the internet in Russia, that doesn’t mean he immediately used those powers to restrict speech and communication for political purposes. It took a while, and he still hasn’t banned YouTube. So in the meantime perhaps we shouldn’t worry so much.

    I agree, but it is the work of a few months to reformulate a company – particularly if the company is just a facade for an arm of the Chinese government – and then the bill wouldn’t apply. 

    But I’m sure there is a middle ground where a bill would target the kinds of companies intended rather than grant the government sweeping powers to misuse. 

    If Congress meant no mischief with bills, each bill would come with a statement of intended scope to be used as a guide to prevent legal abuse. But of course they don’t. 

    • #8
  9. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    From the Reason article:

    Warner’s office says this isn’t so. Spokesperson Rachel Cohen told Newsweek that the provisions only apply when someone is “engaged in ‘sabotage or subversion’ of communications technology in the U.S., causing ‘catastrophic effects’ on U.S. critical infrastructure, or ‘interfering in, or altering the result’ of a federal election in order for criminal penalties to apply.” The RESTRICT Act targets “companies like Kaspersky, Huawei and TikTok … not individual users,” she said.

    Here’s an idea. If the RESTRICT act targets certain companies, how about writing the act to target those companies and only those companies, as Josh Hawley originally intended with his bill earlier this year.

    On the other hand, maybe we should relax. When the Russian Duma granted more powers to Vladimir Biden to regulate the internet in Russia, that doesn’t mean he immediately used those powers to restrict speech and communication for political purposes. It took a while, and he still hasn’t banned YouTube. So in the meantime perhaps we shouldn’t worry so much.

    We’ve hardly heard from him since the-e-en…

    • #9
  10. Jimmy Carter Member
    Jimmy Carter
    @JimmyCarter

    “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”

    • #10
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