Restrict Act ~ Another muzzle on free speech

Emmy Griffin at Patriot Post explains the “Restrict Act”, presently gaining support in the Senate:

RESTRICT stands for Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats That Risk Information and Communications Technology, and of the several bills presented to the Senate on the issue of social media abuses, this one has the most popular support.

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However, one thing to take into consideration is that when crafting legislation that restricts or bans TikTok, other social media companies need to be part of the calculous as well. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat, and others all data-mine their users. It’s a good rule of thumb that if a product is free, the actual product is you, the user. In this case, data-mining and microphone-tapping are used to provide users with targeted ads. It is an invasion of privacy, albeit one that mostly feels innocuous — for now.

The RESTRICT Act would delegate regulation to a bureaucrat in the executive branch. The secretary of commerce would be given carte blanche to make several decisions that are troubling, to say the least. According to Senator Rand Paul: “The bill’s application is far from limited to Tiktok or other internet-based companies. The third section of the bill would enable the Secretary of Commerce to investigate any business that is in any way subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary to determine if its transactions ‘pose an undue or unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.’ Though the bill already designates China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba as foreign adversaries, the RESTRICT Act also empowers the Secretary of Commerce to unilaterally add any other country to this official enemies list.”

The current secretary of commerce, Gina M. Raimondo, has already stated that banning TikTok would be a politically deleterious move for the Democrats. In an interview, she said, “The politician in me thinks you’re gonna literally lose every voter under 35, forever.”

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The RESTRICT Act takes away freedoms from the American people. It is just another thinly veiled attack against the First Amendment. The powers granted to the secretary of commerce give her the authority to remove, investigate, or outright censor companies that aren’t toeing the Democrat Party line. In fact, if any company resists her edicts, those responsible could go to jail for 20 years.

Do we really want that sort of power in the hands of an unelected bureaucrat?

That sane answer is no. . . .

Read the rest here.

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