Posted on 03/30/2023 3:51:29 AM PDT by guinness4strength
Hawley, Paul clash on floor over TikTok ban: Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) clashed Wednesday afternoon over the future of TikTok in a spirited exchange on the Senate floor that shows disagreements over how to regulate the controversial app cross party lines in Congress.
The two conservative stars butted heads when Hawley attempted to gain unanimous consent to pass his bill to prohibit TikTok from operating in the United States and ban commercial activity with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance.
Paul immediately slapped down Hawley’s request.
“There are two main reasons why we might not want to do this. The one would be the First Amendment to the Constitution. Speech is protected whether you like it or not. The second reason would be that the Constitution actually prohibits bills of attainder,” he said before objecting.
“This fails on two egregious points, pretty obvious points. I think we ought to think about that,” he added.
The Constitution prohibits bills of attainder, which allow the government to punish individuals or groups without a trial.
Paul suggested that proponents of banning TikTok are peddling fear and argued that domestic Big Tech companies also collect vast amounts of data from American users without much scrutiny or interference from the federal government.
“I think we should be aware of those who peddle fear. I think we should be aware of those who use fear to coax Americans to relinquish our liberties,” he said. “Every accusation of data-gathering that’s been attributed to TikTok could also be attributed to domestic Big Tech companies.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Thanks we need info from web dev on the details
Still surprised at the mob mentality
It’s refreshing to see someone in Congress who does NOT reflexively see another stupid law or regulation as the solution to every challenge Americans face.
I am a Ron Paul fan and like what I see in the son.
https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2023/01/07/the-revolution-continues-rand-paul/
Rand Paul is 100% right on this one. I send many grateful thanks to him.
Apparently.
From what I'm reading the Bill as written doesn't just ban TikTok. It's a wholesale government takeover of Net content for the entire Net. No more need to suborn and coerce the private sector platforms. Communist China here we come.
Pretty much. This bill is trash worse than the Patriot Act.
It will be immediately weaponized against conservatives.
Also: the reason Tiktoc is universal despised is bc Google and Facebook push stories about it to manipulate public opinion. They did so out of professional jealousy and profit. It’s a huge competitor and about to destroy them.
The mob mentality is a creation of search engine manipulation.
Google and Facebook use their power to pick stories.
They are doing so because TilToc is their biggest competitor.
Not they Tt doesn’t suck; it does. But some truth is always necessary for a good propaganda campaign
I despise Google and everything about it.
Google is the defacto source of truth every day for billions of people on Earth. Last I heard, some 4 billion plus people access Google at least once a day.
For information they take as fact.
And they have no idea that Google shapes what information it gives them, and does so to advance its own agenda, and that of the Left.
Paul consistently supports the Constitution. Most of his fellow Senators give the Constitution lip service.
The 2023 Restrict Act appears to be another wolf in sheep’s clothing like George W. Bush’s “Patriot Act”.
Lest we forget, President Donald Trump banned Tic Tok by executive order. Joe Biden reversed Trump’s executive order. If the goal is to ban Tic Tok, reinstate the executive order or pass a one page bill simply banning Tic Tok.
This bill does not pass the smell test for the following reasons:
1) It does not even mention Tic Tok, the alleged subject of the bill.
2) It is sponsored by Senator Mark Warner, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, member of the “Gang of Eight” and extremely partisan Democrat. Warner is deep in the Deep State and no friend of liberty.
3) The bill gives the federal bureaucracy significant powers to regulate public use and public speech on the internet. It also enhances the power to spy on the public. Politicized bureaucrats will have new powers to stifle opposition and dissent. Fighting these arbitrary actions in the courts will take years and millions of dollars, which most citizens do not have.
4) Most of the users of Tic Tok are teenagers and young people acting out. Their activities are hardly a national security threat. The real threat to national security is the millions of electronic devices and microprocessors imported from China each year. Many are embedded in crucial infrastructure (the power grid for example), computers used by government and business, and military equipment. What is Congress doing about this very real and immediate threat? Nothing.
5) In the modern era elected and career government officials have demonstrated a strong ability and willingness to trample rights of citizens protected by the Constitution. We’ve seen provisions of the Patriot Act used to spy on citizens peacefully exercising their rights of protest. Wiretapping, SWAT team home invasions to seize documents and computer equipment, seizure of personal telephones by the FBI in public places, trampling the January 6 protestors rights of due process, Covid lockdowns, required vaccination.
The truth is, if Tic Tok is an immediate threat to national security, it can be shut down today using legislation already on the books as was demonstrated during Trump’s tenure in office. Alternatively, Congress can pass a one page bill specifically banning Tic Tok but not regulating other activities of citizens. A one page bill can be passed by both houses of Congress in the morning and signed by the president in the afternoon.
So why aren’t the Republicans desiring this legislation simply pushing for Biden to reinstate Trump’s executive order banning Tic Tok? Why is the media not pointing out that Tic Tok can be banned under current legislation? Why isn’t Mark Warner pushing the president from his party to reinstate the ban? Why the sudden urgency for new legislation giving the government expansive power over citizen use of social media and the internet? Why the need to regulate the use of VPN’s, which many citizens lawfully employ to prevent corporations and the government from monitoring their free and lawful use of the internet?
Could it be there is an election coming up in 2024 and Deep State wants these powers to use to restrict the activities of certain citizens during the months before the election?
Breathe in deeply. This legislation doesn’t pass the smell test.
“Also: the reason Tiktoc is universal despised is bc Google and Facebook push stories about it to manipulate public opinion. They did so out of professional jealousy and profit. It’s a huge competitor and about to destroy them.”.
Add in there that Google/Facebook are NSA/CIA and they have a right to all that data used to control and manipulate information and you. How dare those Chinese try to steal the data we were already stealing!
sounds like another patriot act where they take away our bill of rights in a 10,000 page bill that nobody has ever read. I’d like to know who the people are that write these bills. THESE people are the deep state. They are the shadow government. Unelected, unaccountable, they put stuff in our laws that no one else knows about. It’s an insane system. Who put these traitors in charge? Not the voters.
Do you have a link to the bill? The office lawyer just asked for it.
His good friend is a Congressman.
“Every accusation of data-gathering that’s been attributed to TikTok could also be attributed to domestic Big Tech companies.”
Except they are not a domestic company. They are a foreign company that is answerable to the Chinese Communist Party, and must give them access to that data. Is espionage protected by the 1st Amendment? Then why did they execute the Rosenbergs? They were exercising their right to free speech by giving away nuclear secrets to a hostile power.
Hawley's bill is more narrow, but still gives power to the executive branch similar to S. 686.
“I think we should be aware of those who peddle fear. I think we should be aware of those who use fear to coax Americans to relinquish our liberties,” he said. “Every accusation of data-gathering that’s been attributed to TikTok could also be attributed to domestic Big Tech companies.”
Not a good argument.
This argument tacitly endorses government spying.
The other argument the bill is too broad and could be a poison pill is logical and not specious.
A link to the bill appears below:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15
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