State Department Announces Great Firewall for the US

They want to safeguard “America” which basically means the government. If they want to safeguard citizens then we need a firewall that keeps out American agencies, and makes it illegal for companies to sell information to the US government. It should also put the users in control of what data companies can take without consent.

Insofar as China is a dystopian nightmare that's paved the way for surveillance and genocide augmented by technology in ways that (from what I've seen) make something like Abu Ghraib seem a mild human rights offense - I'm not super upset about stricter measures against the usage/ubiquity of Chinese technology, infrastructure, etc.

That said, we need to safeguard the fundamental freedoms of American society; accessing even dubious telecommunications, etc. should be balanced against the ideal (accepted ontological reality of the American founding) that Americans have "god-given" individual autonomy and freedom.

I'm not sure how we reconcile this, but I think freedoms must be treated as inviolable (of course people will always have the ability to violate them).

Ideally, the government would advise companies to remove the apps, and American society and companies voluntarily reject Chinese apps, hardware, etc. Rhetoric and persuasion is the best way to respect freedom and individual autonomy yet accomplish stuff like this, imo.