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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

• revscat 4y ago
  lol ridiculous.
  • rglover 4y ago
    It's not at all. Give it a read: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35345064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35345064
• throwaway29812 4y ago
  > the same level of sweeping control with the implementation of a Great Firewall The same level ?
  • sebzim4500 4y ago
    Genuine question: can violating the Great Firewall lead to a 20 year prison sentence? What about a $1M fine?
    • firen777 4y ago
      If you are small fish watching Twitch and Pornhub, couple of weeks, maybe. If you are a dissidents influencer or online figure, on the other hand, you will be lucky to even be found out why you disappeared.
      • throwaway29812 4y ago
        We still don't know where this woman is: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kassycho/chinese-woman-ink-xi-jinping-live-stream-disappeared https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kassycho/chinese-woman-... And more recently: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/22/china/china-zero-covid-protesters-detained-beijing-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/22/china/china-zero-covid-protes...
        • throwaway29812 4y ago
          Oh no, it gets worse: https://hongkongfp.com/2022/09/26/father-of-chinese-ink-girl-dong-yaoqiong-dies-in-prison-body-found-covered-with-wounds-reports/ https://hongkongfp.com/2022/09/26/father-of-chinese-ink-girl...
    • throwaway29812 4y ago
      1. Hundreds of bills exist in draft form, like this one, and are never passed. 2. There are countless examples of dissidents in China disappeared that amounts to worse than a 20 year prison sentence, which again is part of a bill that remains highly unlikely to pass in its current form. I would point to actual cases of authoritarian oppression rather than theoretical ones.
  • sudosysgen 4y ago
    From a layman's reading of the bill, it would require ISPs to set up bans for arbitrary foreign websites, and it would impose harsh penalties on entities enabling any bypass. Whether it is used to its fullest extent cannot be known, but if the President wanted to, this bill would allow them to ban any major foreign website and would require companies to effectively set up a firewall. In theory, it could be applied to be even more severe than the Great Firewall, depending on how you interpret certain sections.
• ActorNightly 4y ago
  Honest question,did the Patriot act ever get misused intentionally in a grossly negligent way?
  • rglover 4y ago
    Go ahead and take your belt and shoes off for me.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • sebzim4500 4y ago
    Yes. Between 2003 and 2006, nearly two hundred thousand National Security Letters were issued to obtain personal/financial history of US citizens without any judicial review. This data was only used for one terrorism related conviction, and it is generally considered that this conviction would have happend even without the act.
    • twoodfin 4y ago
      Why would you expect NSL’s to be used in criminal convictions? What does that have to do with national security? Isn’t the whole point of an NSL to get something for legitimate national security purposes that couldn’t be legitimately acquired for criminal prosecution?
      • RandallBrown 4y ago
        If you're doing something that threatens the nation's security, you're probably committing a crime.
        • RoyGBivCap 4y ago
          Well, yeah. The security of Britain's colonies as a wee bit threatened by the War of Independence. The crown very much considered it a crime. But was it wrong?
• jedberg 4y ago
  Because it's unconstitutional to make a law that targets a specific person or company. They have to be subtle and use generic terms to describe who is affected by the law in a way where TikTok ends up being the only company that qualifies right now. It's also good practice because it prevents TikTok from just making a new company that is exactly the same. Edit: changed illegal to unconstitutional because someone below was confused.
  • setgree 4y ago
    It is not illegal for Congress to target specific products. I do not know where you got that impression. Laws can be deemed unconstitutional upon review, but Congress literally defines what is legal or not.
    • ABeeSea 4y ago
      That’s just being pedantic. The constitution explicitly bans bills of attainder so any law targeting a specific person or company will be struck down.
      • epylar 4y ago
        Not necessarily. Only if the Supreme Court hears the case and agrees.
        • cbsmith 4y ago
          Lower courts can rule on it and provide injunctions. If it is appealed and the Supreme Court hears it, then it matters if they agree or not.
      • dragonwriter 4y ago
        > The constitution explicitly bans bills of attainder so any law targeting a specific person or company will be struck down. The law must be both specific and punitive to be a bill of attainder. A law can nonpunitively regulate a “class of one” without being a Bill of Attainder. See, Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977). [0] So, it is not quite accurate that “any law targeting a specific person or company will be struck down”. OTOH, a “TikTok ban” based on asserted prior misconduct would pretty surely be seen as punitive. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/433/425 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/433/425
• djha-skin 4y ago
  Interesting that the senator from Virginia introduced the bill. After all how many of us have a great portion of our traffic being served out of us-east-1?
  • akomtu 4y ago
    It must be proximity to Langley that makes Virginia politicians so creatively authoritarian.
• shagie 4y ago
  The "name a specific company" is known as a bill of attainder ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder ) > A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of people, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person's civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs), the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself. Within the US... > In 2011, the House voted to defund Planned Parenthood. Democratic Representative Jerry Nadler called that vote a bill of attainder, saying it was unconstitutional as such because the legislation was targeting a specific group. With that in mind, calling out a specific company gets dicy. Thus, they are instead written as: (3) COVERED HOLDING.—The term “covered holding”— (A) means, regardless of how or when such holding was or will be obtained or otherwise come to have been held, a controlling holding held, directly or indirectly, in an ICTS covered holding entity by— (i) a foreign adversary; (ii) an entity subject to the jurisdiction of, or organized under the laws of, a foreign adversary; or (iii) an entity owned, directed, or controlled by an entity described in subparagraphs (i) or (ii); and (B) includes any other holding, the structure of which is designed or intended to evade or circumvent the application of this Act, subject to regulations prescribed by the Secretary. ... (10) ICTS COVERED HOLDING ENTITY.—The term “ICTS covered holding entity” means any entity that— (A) owns, controls, or manages information and communications technology products or services; and (B) (i) has not less than 1,000,000 United States-based annual active users at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President; or (ii) for which more than 1,000,000 units have been sold to persons in the United States before the date on which the covered holding is referred to the President.
  • rawgabbit 4y ago
    From my cursory reading of the bill, it says (a) if a foreign adversary has control or interest in a piece of hardware or software or IOT (b) and that hardware software IOT touches or has data for more than 1,000,000 persons in any given year (c) the Secretary needs to decide if it should be banned or do something about it. I understand that any bill can be abused. But IMO this bill reads like common sense.
• scythe 4y ago
  I think that one particular subsection deserves a lot more attention: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text#id4ee2978bff18422799d0b68a1f633b3f 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 section 552 of title 5, United States Code (commonly referred to as the “Freedom of Information Act”).
  • shagie 4y ago
    https://www.foia.gov/faq.html 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?)