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>The ban is the government retribution. No it isn't. China has already admitted they hacked us all the major US telecoms to spy on American citizens, and shown

>The ban is the government retribution. No it isn't. China has already admitted they hacked us all the major US telecoms to spy on American citizens, and shown no indication that they intend to stop doing that sort of thing. We simply can't trust them to install applications on devices that store the most sensitive secrets of our politicians, military leaders, and citizens. See Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon for more information. China admitted that Salt Typhoon was them, and Volt Typhoon is relatively obvious. It's worth also noting that they used the backdoors that were put in place for CISA requests, which is a perfect example of why government mandated backdoors are a bad idea.

frollogaston 1y ago
This is all true, but it's not the reason for the ban. Sen. Romney admitted it. The sponsor Rep. Gallagher and other lawmakers pretty much said it too.
guappa 1y ago
What would banning 1 single app do when all of them do the same shit? How does it help anyone to be spied by 1 less app?
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  If Americans are not ideologically opposed to being spied upon by corporations, there is no disconnect here. Americans have strongly signaled, through politics and actions, that they do not give a fuck about their privacy or information security, and ask any voter and they'll repeat some bullshit about "I don't care" or "nothing to hide". But Americans do not want to be spied upon by a literal adversarial government which sets up police stations in other countries. I don't want to be spied upon by my country, but currently Republicans want to use the force of the federal government to police and punish wrongthink, and Obama was a true believer in the US spy state, so they didn't exactly try to remove it. It's hard to get America to undo a policy that was sold as "Kill the terrorists in our country" when those same voters have, 20 years later, enthusiastically supported another round of "kill the brown and muslims because they are terrorists" and want to deport people for tweets.
  - frollogaston 1y ago
    The popularity of TikTok in the US suggests Americans don't care about the adversarial govt spying either.
- stevenAthompson 1y ago
  > What would banning 1 single app do when all of them do the same shit? That feels like a facetious question. You may as well also ask, "Why we bother arresting the worst murderers when there will still be other murderers?"

frollogaston 1y ago

This is all true, but it's not the reason for the ban. Sen. Romney admitted it. The sponsor Rep. Gallagher and other lawmakers pretty much said it too.

guappa 1y ago

What would banning 1 single app do when all of them do the same shit? How does it help anyone to be spied by 1 less app?

mrguyorama 1y ago
If Americans are not ideologically opposed to being spied upon by corporations, there is no disconnect here. Americans have strongly signaled, through politics and actions, that they do not give a fuck about their privacy or information security, and ask any voter and they'll repeat some bullshit about "I don't care" or "nothing to hide". But Americans do not want to be spied upon by a literal adversarial government which sets up police stations in other countries. I don't want to be spied upon by my country, but currently Republicans want to use the force of the federal government to police and punish wrongthink, and Obama was a true believer in the US spy state, so they didn't exactly try to remove it. It's hard to get America to undo a policy that was sold as "Kill the terrorists in our country" when those same voters have, 20 years later, enthusiastically supported another round of "kill the brown and muslims because they are terrorists" and want to deport people for tweets.
- frollogaston 1y ago
  The popularity of TikTok in the US suggests Americans don't care about the adversarial govt spying either.
stevenAthompson 1y ago
> What would banning 1 single app do when all of them do the same shit? That feels like a facetious question. You may as well also ask, "Why we bother arresting the worst murderers when there will still be other murderers?"