> frankly I'm not sure if a foreign business under the thumb of the CCP is more or less a threat than businesses operating in our own country abusing the same f

> frankly I'm not sure if a foreign business under the thumb of the CCP is more or less a threat than businesses operating in our own country abusing the same freedoms for personal gain. The difference is that a foreign business under the thumb of the CCP is essentially a CCP propagandist, capable of spreading pro-CCP, anti-US propaganda. US business's abusing US citizens are doing so purely for profit. This is bad and needs to be stopped, but IMO is the lesser of immediate concerns. Now of course the US government can (and indeed has) abused its own citizens for political manipulation too, via these tools. But the key difference is that the US government is (at least, in theory, and I agree more needs to be done here...) accountable to US citizens. The CCP is not. The CCP isn't even accountable to its own citizens, both in theory and in practice, which is exactly why many are against the CCP's modus operandi in the first place. > I think the information age has really pushed the limits of what we find acceptable to leave to independent choice in democratic societies. Freedoms in democracy are being abused left-and-right to highlight specific weaknesses fundamental a democracy's healthy function. This is precisely what the US's adversaries want; they want democracy to fail, because its failure strengthens their legitimacy as "the correct way" to govern, to any would-be naysayers.