Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

> "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic..."

The decision for the first quote you used was overturned afterward, over 50 years ago now. It's misrepresentative of the current state of the law and you shouldn't use it as an example.

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...

This is a misleading and, frankly, rather disgusting analogy.

The sovereignty of an individual, especially over one’s own body, and the sovereignty of a nation are not even near equivalents.

And yes, I know that at this time the sovereignty of individual Ukrainians, men and women, is being horribly violated. But this did not need to happen even if the sovereignty of the nation itself was violated. It’s a separate matter for which Russians, especially individual soldiers and their commanders, bear direct blame for. They could have chosen another, less disgusting, far less inhumane means to gain control of Ukraine.

As well, despite the clear propaganda behind it, Russia can at least claim that they felt threatened by Ukraine’s chummy relationship with the narcissistic and occasionally-aggressive Uncle Sam. This entirely breaks your analogy as rape is never a defensive maneuver no matter how one might twist it.

The lines are clearer than ever for the 21st century. This century has been kicked off with the world struggle between democracy and totalitarianism.

People have a choice. Choose the US/Europe/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan, or, the mideast/Russia/China. Many people voted with their feet, migrating to the former nations. Those people have no room to speak as they already voted.

I'm missing some players of course, but generally speaking we in the Free World are definitely at a disadvantage and outnumbered by the hordes of people who desire strongmen and dictators. Most of the world actually does not want or trust themselves with self-determination through representative government. Russia is one of the few examples in Europe where the people want freedom, but don't really know what it is and are scared of the idea that they'll have to become active players in a non-farcical representative democracy.

The middle east similarly never asked for democracy. They largely see no use for it. Most of Asia is the same. The typical Chinese person prefers the greatness of China as a nationalistic power, rather than the greatness of their institutions progressing the freedom of mankind. Which is how most of us in Europe and North America view our true strengths as.

Of course, overt nationalism will lead to servitude, especially for Russia. They'll be losing Chechnya soon, and become a vassal state to China. Far lower than their previous state in the world. This is a nation that once slammed their foreheads on the ground in honor of their Turkish masters, now they are taking off their shoes for the Chinese. Their alternative choice was to ditch Putin, and join with the American, European and Asian democracies. Contrary to popular belief, we welcomed them. But Putin looks at old maps of the Russian Empire and honestly thought it was possible again. Being a farce democracy, there was no institutional resistance to stop him. He's only destroying Russia.

The Russian people are also ultimately responsible here. They chose to cower to Putin. I'm sympathetic to them to a degree, these are a people that haven't and don't dare to speak their views outside of their kitchen table. Yet inaction is an action. They can still stop this. But they have to storm the Kremlin and take him out ASAP. It won't happen. We have a newly confirmed genocidal state in the world to contend with.

Because, in this instance, the lion is not the one that launched an invasion. Particularly egregious, launching a pre-emptive war based on a flimsy premise of what Ukraine might do in the future.

National security is the sum total of the individual earned securities of each citizen, including economic, political, social, health, cultural, military and all sorts of security that pertain to the identity we call a nation.

What these guys are talking about is something else. They are talking about the security of the security services, their own self interests and the status quo of enmeshed relations between three letter agencies and a few captured tech giants.

On the contrary, the exact opposite is true. National security is best served by a diverse, pluralistic, open, heterogeneous tech industry. There is no reason intelligence needs cannot function properly with such an ecosystem, but it would have to do so through the Rule of Law, and systems of warrants that the incumbents have sought to bypass this last 20 years.