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Patriot Act on steroids: anti-TikTok Trojan horse for censorship, surveillance
- Scalene2 4y agoThe author would have a lot more credibility if they didn't use "uniparty" the way they are using it.
- gjsman-1000 4y agoI don't know. The Republicans in general are just Democrats 10 years late. They were against gay marriage - now, well, Trump isn't actually willing to upset that apple cart despite the press. 10 years ago they were complaining about government spending, now they sign stimulus checks like the rest even if the Green New Deal is too much to stomach (for now)...
- p0pcult 4y agoYeah so i suppose it is the [checks notes] Democrats who are throwing molotovs at church signs over Drag Story Hour. TIL https://fox8.com/news/church-to-host-drag-story-hour-vandalized-by-molotov-cocktails/ https://fox8.com/news/church-to-host-drag-story-hour-vandali...
- checksnotes 4y ago[flagged]
- p0pcult 4y ago[flagged]
- dang 4y agoPlease don't use HN for political battle or post flamewar comments, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 4y agoWe've banned this account, not because you're criticizing HN (that's fine), but because you've been using HN primarily for political battle, as well as creating lots of accounts to break the site guidelines with. Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- EngManagerIsMe 4y agoOn the flip side, Democrats are just the Republicans from two decades ago. Biden pushing for stronger border patrols, shutting down striking unions, and opening oil drilling is pretty bog standard Republicanism from the 2000s. The two parties differ in how they view some minorities, but honestly, they're pretty alike in the broad strokes. Oh to have an actual leftist party in the states.
- kmeisthax 4y agoThis article is heavy on rhetoric and light on substance. What, specifically, in the RESTRICT/DATA acts is doing surveillance or censorship things? I don't doubt that this is the case, I just want to know the actual contours of the law. This article had three linked Tweets, one of which is a political opinion, one of which is a video, and the last is a screenshot from the "In General" section of the bill. The "In General" section is not the actual law itself, it just describes what the law is intended to do. The thread that the third tweet is a part of provides more information, but it's still very hard to follow. For example, one of the tweets claims: > If you recall from before, “Foreign Individuals” can now also be US citizens that are deemed a national security threat. Once designated, the bill grants authority to enforce any action deemed necessary to mitigate the threat, with no due process and few limits on punishments. This is very fucking scary! However, the associated images do not include anything that says US citizens. The only thing that would apply would be if a US citizen conspired with a designated foreign asset to violate... whatever is in this bill. You need to present your information better, rather than just saying that something is bad and then handing a bunch of algebra to the reader to figure out.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago> If you recall from before, “Foreign Individuals” can now also be US citizens that are deemed a national security threat. Could this potentially be unconstitutional?
- kmeisthax 4y agoNot on it's own, because the constitution doesn't say "Congress shall make no law that binds US citizens". It says a handful of specific things that Congress cannot do, and without knowing exactly what is being blocked, banned, or spied upon I can't say if it's unconstitutional or not.
- rektide 4y agoThe last is https://twitter.com/lpmisescaucus/status/1639934790026555394 https://twitter.com/lpmisescaucus/status/1639934790026555394 which is a thread showing a long long series of horrifying intrusive new powers & maximalist authoritarianism. This is absolutely the most craven anti-people hood power grab my generation has seen in America. Absolutely as bad as the Patriot Act. Truly wretched way to take fear mongering & use it to intrude absolutely on anything the military or the government does not like. Fuck this, fuck these people.
- skee8383 4y ago[flagged]
- CodexArcana 4y agoGet out of your echo chamber and look around once in a while.
- EngManagerIsMe 4y agoThe moral panic of the era. Whether it's the internet, rock n roll, dungeons and dragons, Elvis gyrating his hips, the red scare, mods and rockers, violence in games, or even the printed word, there's always someone coming out and saying "X has turned everyone into Y". Let people enjoy things.
- BLKNSLVR 4y agoFacebook turned everyone into mini-screen-fixated zombies starting a decade ago. Did you want that banned? TikTok is just tweaking the playbook. More power to them, it's a free country!
- ltbarcly3 4y agoThe bill will ban transactions with foreign companies (in specific instances). Being able to ban (aka regulate) international transactions is nothing like the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act allowed surveillance and secret data collection against US citizens, and made it illegal to notify those being collected against, and all without due process or any kind of warrant, just a letter from the executive branch insisting they needed to collect the data. If you attempted to bring the government to court to defend your rights, they would simply refuse to admit they collected your information and the court would dismiss the case since there was no way to show harm. There is no way to prevent a financial transaction without revealing that the transaction was prevented, so the cowardly tactics used by the government to avoid scrutiny of the Patriot Act can't be used here. I would be wary of the comparison between this and the Patriot Act, and I wonder about the motivation of those making it.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago> If you attempted to bring the government to court to defend your rights, they would simply refuse to admit they collected your information and the court would dismiss the case since there was no way to show harm. Bought to you by the Supreme Court's 1980s pivot towards "standing" weaselry. A right without a remedy is somehow still a right. That and $5.50 will get you an express bus into Seattle.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Miner49er 4y agoI have yet to see a convincing argument for banning Tik Tok. It's no worse then any US social media company.
- paulcole 4y agoWhy do you think there would be a convincing argument? It’s all politics, grandstanding, and power. If you want to ban something and have the ability to make it happen, why let the lack of a convincing argument stand in your way?
- 13years 4y agoThe premise is China is spying on US citizens. I suppose we don't want competition when it comes to invasion of privacy. Therefore, we ban it so only US companies can spy on US citizens.
- revlolz 4y agoI'm curious what people think about tiktok' plans. They vowed to move data into us soil and have external audits. It came across as actual good faith compromises from my perspective.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 14 4y agoI think they would still send all the data back to China just discreetly. Even with external audits it would be trivial to do so.
- libraryatnight 4y agoThey can feed their users propaganda no matter where the data lives, I don't think the data is the goal, I think the eyeballs are.
- senttoschool 4y ago
- Kon-Peki 4y agoThe text of the bill is here https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686... I started to read it; 1/3 of the way through and I’m not losing any sleep (yet?). I’d like an actual knowledgeable attorney’s point of view; I’ve completely lost trust in what “important tech people” have to say.
- somenameforme 4y agoThe first third is just definitions. The actual bill begins in section 3. In legal text that will be controversial, look for poorly defined terms that are regularly repeated. During net neutrality days the term was "reasonable network management" which was never defined and gave large operators a carveout to engage in acts contrary to the ideals of net neutrality, even under net neutrality. Here the term seems to be "safety of United States persons." It's used 6 times in multiple contexts and never defined. What does it mean? Well, whatever "they" want it to mean. So, look at section 3 and remove unnecessary language and you get: The secretary is authorized to engage in [any action] to prevent/prohibit/disrupt/... [any risk] arising from [any covered transaction] that the secretary determines poses an undue risk to the "safety of United States persons." The "covered transactions" comes down to anything even possibly subject to influence by a "foreign adversary." A foreign adversary is anybody who engages in conduct adverse to the "safety of United States persons", which apparently includes countries like Cuba and Venezuela, among the ones you might otherwise expect. And how do you expect to block all of this? You're looking at the start of the Great Firewall of America.
- adam_arthur 4y agoForcing a sale to a trusted owner and complete audit of the codebase/infrastructure solves the problem in a much better way. I'm not sure why TikTok needs to be banned. If TikTok would rather close than sell, that's fine too. In general I don't agree with government forcing things like these, but if they're going to intervene at least do it right. Banning it outright comes across as a handout to the other social media companies
- ch4s3 4y agoIt is 100% a handout to other social media companies who donate heavily to both parties.
- WillPostForFood 4y agoPeople aren't going to like this, but the Trump policy pushing for the Oracle takeover was more moderate and reasonable.
- YeBanKo 4y agoSo since russia is an adversary, and scihub is ran by either russian national or resident, any academic who interacted with it might fall under sec 11 (penalties).
- calgarymicro 4y agoI don't think so? Reading the bill, it specifically allows the executive to disallow 'covered transactions' and defines the prohibited activity in terms of those transactions, so even if they designated SciHub as a national security threat an academic would have to aid SciHub in carrying out transactions in order to be subject to penalties.
- YeBanKo 4y agoThen I don’t understand, how it will prevent TikTok. Here is a def of transaction from the bill: (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, software updates, repairs, or the provision of data hosting services, or a class of such transactions. Does it mean you can’t install an app developed by an adversary and App Store can be liable for letting you do this?
- calgarymicro 4y agoIt will destroy TikTok, the company owned by ByteDance, which would achieve the same effect. Given how unprecedented it would be for the US to try to set up its own 'great firewall', I imagine they view hitting the corporate entity as the easier path. In any case, in order to put TikTok on the App Store, they have to pay to join the Apple Developer program; Apple would be prohibited from taking the money if TikTok was designated a national security threat. The same might even go for facilitating the installation of TikTok via the App Store.
- ck2 4y agoPeople don't actually believe the NSA stopped collecting all communications by everyone just because they were caught right? It doesn't matter what "the law" says, who is going to stop them?
- theknocker 4y ago[dead]
- serial_dev 4y agoWhen I read news about banning TikTok in the US, I keep thinking about whether the EU should ban the same way Twitter and Facebook. I am really undecided (just like with the TikTok ban), but I can't see how the same arguments couldn't be used to justify a EU-wide US social media ban.
- blackoil 4y agoThese ban are primarily political in nature. US and China are at a cold war, so see these actions from that perspective. Privacy, User protection are mostly just front.
- max51 4y agoThe irony with all of this is that if you live in a country allied with the US, you are safer on Tiktok than any US-bases social media platform. If you live in a western country, the US has way more power to fuck over your life than China does. It only takes one email from a three letter agency and your life is completely ruined. China on the other hand has no power over you if you are a westerner without family living in china. The only power china has is in Asia, you can be as rude as you want toward them if you don't have close family living there. They know better than to start fire bombing Europe or the US over whatever you have in you chat history. Using social engineering to fuck with your life is also much harder and more expensive when their hardcore supporters don't even speak the same language you do and they don't have support from the authorities to force you to do anything. They can't threaten to arrest you the same way an agent working for the US could. The US on the other hand will get to you regardless of where you are in the world. They will go as far as killing state leaders and journalists overseas. Even as a US citizen living in the US, they literally passed laws under Obama that allows the US government to drone strike US citizens for national security reasons without a trial.
- rudyfink 4y agoAnd, if you do not, the opposite?
- colinsane 4y ago> Even as a US citizen, they literally passed laws under Obama that allows the US government to drone strike US citizen for national security reasons without a trial. are you referring to [Anwar al-Awlaki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki)? i was under the impression there just wasn’t a ruling on it. which, pretty shitty to let the right to due process degrade de-facto, but not quite the same as “literally passing laws” that make it unambiguously legal.
- nonethewiser 4y agoWell it makes it worse. The constitution is very clear about affording citizens due process. Obama setting the precedent of drone striking the US citizen without consequences is what muddies the waters.
- aaron695 4y ago[dead]