Emmy Griffin at Patriot
Post explains the “Restrict Act”, presently gaining support in the Senate:
RESTRICT stands for Restricting the
Emergence of Security Threats That Risk Information and Communications
Technology, and of the several bills presented to the Senate on the issue of
social media abuses, this one has the most popular support.
. . .
However, one thing to take into
consideration is that when crafting legislation that restricts or bans TikTok,
other social media companies need to be part of the calculous as well.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat, and others all data-mine their users.
It’s a good rule of thumb that if a product is free, the actual product is you,
the user. In this case, data-mining and microphone-tapping are used to provide
users with targeted ads. It is an invasion of privacy, albeit one that mostly
feels innocuous — for now.
The RESTRICT Act would delegate
regulation to a bureaucrat in the executive branch. The secretary of commerce
would be given carte blanche to make several decisions that are troubling, to
say the least. According to
Senator Rand Paul: “The bill’s application is far from limited to Tiktok or
other internet-based companies. The third section of the bill would enable the
Secretary of Commerce to investigate any business that is in any way subject to
the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary to determine if its transactions ‘pose
an undue or unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.’
Though the bill already designates China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba as
foreign adversaries, the RESTRICT Act also empowers the Secretary of Commerce
to unilaterally add any other country to this official enemies list.”
The current secretary of commerce,
Gina M. Raimondo, has already stated that banning TikTok would be a politically
deleterious move for the Democrats. In an interview, she said, “The politician
in me thinks you’re gonna literally lose every voter under 35, forever.”
. . .
The RESTRICT Act takes away
freedoms from the American people. It is just another thinly veiled attack
against the First Amendment. The powers granted to the secretary of commerce
give her the authority to remove, investigate, or outright censor companies
that aren’t toeing the Democrat Party line. In fact, if any company resists her
edicts, those responsible could go to jail for 20 years.
Do we really want that sort of
power in the hands of an unelected bureaucrat?
That sane answer is no. . . .
Read the rest here.
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