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Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

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Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#651

Post by yed »

sudosysgen wrote: post #635
yed wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bill applies to only to financial transactions ("covered transactions" in the bill) and holdings ("covered holdings"), there's nothing in it at all directly regulating access to data or websites by individuals.

Not at all. Here is the definition that the bill uses for "transaction": > (17) TRANSACTION.—The term “transaction” means any acquisition, importation, transfer, installation, dealing in, or use of any information and communications technology product or service, including ongoing activities such as managed services, >>>data transmission As you can see here, mere data transmission is considered to be a transaction. I…

You're right, the definition of transaction is quite broad here. However in order for VPN to run afoul of this bill, the gov't would first need to enforce the bill by banning individual users from accessing specific sites on the internet, which the VPN would then bypass. That kind of censorship has never been permitted under the first amendment and I don't see anything here that changes that.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#652

Post by shagie »

scythe wrote: post #578
gorwell wrote: post #214

Did anyone notice that the bill doesn't even mention Tiktok??? If it's a "bill to ban TikTok" why doesn't it name the target? It's a red herring. This is the Patriot Act for the Internet. Ironically they're copying the CCP playbook and want the same level of sweeping control with the implementation of a Great Firewall. It's extremely broad and includes everything connected to the internet that has >1M users in a year…

I think that one particular subsection deserves a lot more attention: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686... >(2) INAPPLICABILITY OF FOIA.—Any information submitted to the Federal Government by a party to a covered transaction in accordance with this Act, as well as any information the Federal Government may create relating to review of the covered transaction, is exempt from disclosure under…

https://www.foia.gov/faq.html

    Not all records are required to be released under the FOIA. Congress established nine exemptions from disclosure for certain categories of information to protect against certain harms, such as an invasion of personal privacy, or harm to law enforcement investigations. The FOIA authorizes agencies to withhold information when they reasonably foresee that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of these nine exemptions.


    Exemption 1: Information that is classified to protect national security.
    Exemption 2: Information related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.
    Exemption 3: Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law.
    Exemption 4: Trade secrets or commercial or financial information that is confidential or privileged.
    Exemption 5: Privileged communications within or between agencies, including those protected by the:
        Deliberative Process Privilege (provided the records were created less than 25 years before the date on which they were requested)
        Attorney-Work Product Privilege
        Attorney-Client Privilege
    Exemption 6: Information that, if disclosed, would invade another individual’s personal privacy.
    Exemption 7: Information compiled for law enforcement purposes that:
        7(A). Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings
        7(B). Would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication
        7(C). Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy
        7(D). Could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source
        7(E). Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law
        7(F). Could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual
    Exemption 8: Information that concerns the supervision of financial institutions.
    Exemption 9: Geological information on wells.
While this is stating that it clearly falls under exemption 3 without any interpretation needed, the various parts of exemption 7 may also apply (consider the question of if a Chinese national provided the information - would it fall under 7F?)

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#653

Post by gonehome »

jacobolus wrote: post #647
fooster wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

End of the covid lockdowns say otherwise.

Can you explain what you mean? The USA never had “lockdowns” at all – to some degree because of public pressure though also because for the first year or so of the crisis the federal government flailed around passively/counterproductively due to abject incompetence (plus some grifting) at the top. Meanwhile China’s Covid policy had nothing whatsoever to do with the American electorate or stakeholders, but was instead…

I think fooster's point is that Xi had to eventually give in to pressure from "the electorate and [China]-based stakeholders" as evidenced by the CCP having to eventually abandon its zero covid policy, so there are some constraints from the people on his power.

Though I think it's less that Xi responded to pressure from the people and more that his personal power was starting to become at risk due to the policy from others in the CCP.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#654

Post by illumin8 »

yed wrote: post #271
tomcar288 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI: i heard about that in a news article, I didn't actually read the bill.

I've read the bill and while I'm not a fan for more general reasons, it doesn't say anything like this at all. The bill is strictly about foreigners from designated US "adversaries" having an ownership stake in large technology companies operating in the US. The text cherry picked in some of these news articles is just a list of the types of technology companies the bill specifies should be the prioritized when evalu…

The problem is the bill creates a new secretary's office reporting directly to the president. This secretary is unaccountable to any voters and can designate any party as an adversary. Sure, it starts with only PRC, Iran, DPRK, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, etc, the typical "baddies" but the secretary can change the list to include any entity, foreign or domestic, at any time.

Then they can fine $250K and up to 20 years in jail if a US person attempts to access banned content. If a US person uses a VPN to try to circumvent this ban the fine increases to $1M.

It also enables them to use all devices on your private network, including routers, wifi APs, webcams, video cameras, smart speakers, etc, to spy on US citizens and persons without any warrant and no recourse for people that are spied on. They can spy on you and surveil your entire digital and physical life and you cannot do anything about it.

This is basically the PATRIOT act for the Internet. It makes it so this new, unaccountable government agency, who meets in secret and is not subject to FOIA, can ban any website, content, or entity they want online, then spy on and jail US persons who might try to access it.

It's pure evil and puts us in the same place that China is today.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#655

Post by ryukafalz »

withinboredom wrote: post #270
ddoolin wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok disappearing from tens of millions of iPhones overnight (I have no idea about Androids) would probably work pretty well. If I had to guess, almost none of those people can jailbreak their iPhone to get it again, either. Your option would be to switch to Android and learn to sideload apps (which I think is pretty damn easy these days). The point is not to enforce against individual users, just to remove it from…

You can freely install apps on your iphone. All you need is an Apple computer. It only can be used for a week? before you have to install it again. I don't pay apple a dime and still develop software for iPhones occasionally without any issues. Also, websites are pretty powerful. Apple even allowed websites to send notifications now.

Serious question: would Apple and Google allowing users to install their own apps on their phones count as aiding/abetting in this case, when the crime is an American using TikTok?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#656

Post by illumin8 »

Thorentis wrote: post #542
withinboredom wrote: post #164

Maybe someone will scroll all the way down to this comment. Probably not. For half a decade, I have lived outside of the US, and I've watched as it has fallen to shit in slow motion. I make a decent chunk of income in USD and this terrifies me... but this. This move saddens me. There are only so many hours that congress has to make real decisions ... and this, this is what they spent their time on? Talking about how…

You underestimate the affect of Tiktok (and other social media) on the mental health of kids, not to mention how easily it can spread ideology. The relationship between those things and school shootings shouldn't need any explanation. I think your view on this is extremely narrow.

By this logic we should ban Facebook and Instagram first.

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#658

Post by imbnwa »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #410
boopmaster wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure which part of our national security surveillance state apparatus is endangered by foreign ownership, but I assume at face value that there is some very embarrassing facts that our local spooks are not keen to share with China. What does the great firewall of America look like, from the infrastructure & interface angle? Would we want to share that with China? Your Google searches and all your metadata tha…

>I’m not sure which part of our national security surveillance state apparatus is endangered by foreign ownership, The propaganda part. Remember a month ago when everyone's feed had a video in it from the TikTok CEO encouraging people to side with TikTok. They are scared shitless of not being mostly in control of that kind of power when applied to Americans. They are worried that the next Saddam is going to pay TikTo…

>Remember a month ago when everyone's feed had a video in it from the TikTok CEO encouraging people to side with TikTok.

Remember how Elon makes it a point to stick himself into everybody's Twitter feed and even fired a guy for not maximizing this further?

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#659

Post by throwawaylinux »

dragonwriter wrote: post #639
throwawaylinux wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large majority of Democrat voters fell for these baseless and dangerous election-denial conspiracy theories. Why do you ask? https://twitter.com/peterjhasson/status/1064259048902668289

The one question you present evidence of is not questioning the legitimacy and validity of the election; there is a difference between believing (rightly or wrongly, with or without sufficient cause) that improper activity effected the popular vote tally and believing that the election is illegitimate. You present no evidence relating to actual election denial.

[flagged]

Re: Senate Bill to Ban TikTok

#660

Post by throwawaylinux »

RobAtticus wrote: post #582
throwawaylinux wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most recent presidential election maybe. For the previous one a majority of Democrats including many high ranking Democrat politicians and officials were election deniers. Clearly you aren't going to have a large contingent of deniers of elections that your favored party won.

When push came to shove, how many Democratic leaders (Reps and Senators) voted against or objected to the electoral college results in 2017? It was less than 10 Representatives and no Senators, meaning none of the objections were even put to a vote[1]. That is a far cry from what occurred in 2021. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_States_Electoral_C...

Talk about clutching at straws and trying to find any possible metric to deflect from the dangerous 2016 election deniers and conspiracy theorist lunatics.

You can't just pick out some other thing and claim that is what is matters most. Just saying "when push comes to shove" doesn't mean anything. How many times did the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee lie about something like having evidence for the delusional conspiracy theory that "Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election", dangerously fueling election denial and undermining confidence in the democratic process, like Adam Schiff did? Aside from rhetoric and assertions by partisans and conspiracy theorists involved in the whole mess, where is the evidence to say what one side does is better or worse or more or less "damaging to democracy"? There isn't any.

If you in denial of the reality that both sides question elections and make up conspiracy theories when it suits them, you are incapable of anything approaching an objective understanding of the topic. Sorry.

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