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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
“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.