America’s online privacy problems are much bigger than TikTok
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
It's doable when you keep everything separate, only hire US citizens, add lots of locked doors, and put people in jail if they leak. I can't picture this working with data that's not considered classified.
I'm wondering if it's not about the data at all. It's about who gets to control the information space. They don't even have to delete information critical of China, just weigh it down so it's essentially never seen.
I think it makes sense for policies to discuss the foreign influence angle separately from the domestic influence angle. Further, it makes sense to sub-divide the foreign influence angle along certain dimensions, such as, generally friendly allies (like the British) versus adversarial powers (like China).
Dividing problems these ways makes the conversations easier to happen, and from a political perspective, legislation tends to happen with a scalpel rather than a knife.
People always seem to want to say "if X is a problem, why don't we talk about Y instead" - in this case, if data sharing is a problem, why don't we talk about the bigger problem? The issue when it comes to politics is that the system is almost by design resistant to big sweeping changes.
There is a lot of value in continuing to have conversations about privacy. About domestic privacy. About foreign privacy. And all the sub-divisions possible along those lines.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, especially in politics. Instead of seeing certain targeted privacy legislation (like potentially against TikTok) as bad, see it as part of a larger conversation and movement towards tougher privacy legislation. As public sentiment turns more and more towards privacy, we can continue to evolve other dimensions of the problem space - including domestic.
I think what has enabled this must be something like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog#As_metaphor
The boiling frog story is generally offered as a metaphor cautioning people to be aware of even gradual change lest they suffer eventual undesirable consequences. It may be invoked in support of a slippery slope argument as a caution against creeping normality. It is also used in business to reinforce that change needs to be gradual to be accepted.[6] The term "boiling frog syndrome" is a metaphor used to describe the failure to act against a problematic situation which will increase in severity until reaching catastrophic proportions.[7] It thereby encapsulates the barely noticeable impact of slow environmental degradation that has been described by Daniel Pauly as shifting baselines.[8]
The story has been retold many times and used to illustrate widely varying viewpoints: in 1960 about warning against those who are sympathetic towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War;[9] in 1980 about the impending collapse of civilization anticipated by survivalists;[10] in the 1990s about inaction in response to climate change and staying in abusive relationships.[11][12] It has also been used by libertarians to warn about the slow erosion of civil liberties.[6]
In the 1996 novel The Story of B, environmentalist author Daniel Quinn spends a chapter on the metaphor of the boiling frog, using it to describe human history, population growth and food surplus.[13] Pierce Brosnan's character Harry Dalton mentioned it in the 1997 disaster movie Dante's Peak in reference to the accumulating warning signs of the volcano's reawakening.[14] Al Gore used a version of the story in a New York Times op-ed,[15] in his presentations and the 2006 movie An Inconvenient Truth to describe ignorance about global warming. In the movie version the frog is rescued before it is harmed.[16] This use of the story was referenced by writer/director Jon Cooksey in the title of his 2010 comedic documentary How to Boil a Frog.[17]
Law professor and legal commentator Eugene Volokh commented in 2003 that regardless of the behavior of real frogs, the boiling frog story is useful as a metaphor, comparing it to the metaphor of an ostrich with its head in the sand.[6] Economics Nobel laureate and New York Times op-ed writer Paul Krugman used the story as a metaphor in a July 2009 column, while pointing out that real frogs behave differently.[18] Journalist James Fallows has been advocating since 2006 for people to stop retelling the story, describing it as a "stupid canard" and a "myth".[19][20] After Krugman's column appeared, however, he declared "peace on the boiled frog front" and said that using the story is acceptable if the writer points out that it is not literally true.[21]
It's like fighting dogs into the pit. They've been put through so much, they'll fight to the death. They want to keep us this way. Much easier to influence and control.
I am not saying that those are true or that I agree with them, but those seem to be the typical arguments.
Not sure it's just kids
I was an adult who thought drinking coke was normal. Now I drink water.
China can access some target in the US who is on tictok and get their realtime location.
Know anyone that uses AliExpress? Or plays Genshin Impact?
1. China banned Facebook after it refused to cooperate with law enforcement following the Urumqi riots. Google and others decided the cost of following censorship laws was too high compared to the return and decided to retreat. Other American tech giants like Microsoft, Apple and IBM have a presence in China. However unjust China's laws may be, there's a qualitative differences between applying it to all companies in the same way vs. what the US is attempting to do with TikTok.
2. From an American point of view, this strikes true. For the rest of the world there's hardly a difference. If any, the US has proved it is willing to enforce its will globally against non-citizens with all means possible (see fe. Julian Assange).
3. Youtubes algorithm is strongly driven by controversy, Instagram seems to be responsible for a large amount of body dismorphia and depression in young people. I'm all for more research and stricter policies to suppress this, but just claiming things without a shred of evidence isn't helping the discussion along.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/22/1165249928/tiktok-congress-he...
Their head lobbyist (Michael Beckerman) was seated right behind the CEO during testimony. He leads their government relations office in DC.
The concern is that although you live in Canada, US, Europe; you can still be "arrested" by Chinese police working in hidden police departments in the Canada, US, and Europe [2]. And TikTok will tell them where you are. From the second article: FBI director Christopher Wray told a US Senate hearing in November that attempts by China to set up a police presence on US soil "violates sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes".
[1] http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c30834/201806/483221713dac4f31bda7... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64909560
https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/chi...
Power can be used without needing to publicly arrest someone
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-by...
(Probably the only silver lining of this geopolitical “competition” right now.)
That belief has to ultimately be a statement of faith. It is basically counting on highly untrustworthy people behaving honestly - they probably aren't. And all the elements of the system are hidden where there is no accountability.
It is just a fact that Google and the US intelligence apparatus are more invasive than TikTok and the Chinese. The former combo spy and conspire against almost literally the range of Trump to Afghan goat herders. TikTok can compete with that, but it can't exceed it.
If I could pick one, I'd feel much safer being spied on the Chinese than the Americans. They've got much less ability to make my life hell. Look at how far Snowden had to run, and how Assange never ran far enough.
This isn't a fact, and that people pretend that it is is a strange contortion of reality that I'm really struggling to understand. CCP is actively using a vast state-sponsored surveillance apparatus to do things like build actual (not imagined) concentration camps. And your reaction to these facts is to imagine that the American state's reaction to its secrets being exposed - regardless of how noble that action was - is the same thing. It's clearly not. For your comparison to be worthwhile, you have to pretend that CIA and NSA are co-owners of Meta and Google and have the means to use it to move elections and public opinion (foreign and domestic) in the way the American regime wants. Is this what you're claiming?
But it is coming. We know the US regularly heads out to topple foreign governments. It just isn't plausible that they'd ignore the influence of US social media companies when they do that. Certainly I think India and the EU would have to be a bit crazy to give Facebook & friends free access to their population. I expect there is a faction at Google who have Modi voodoo dolls on hand.
> It's clearly not.
I have no doubt it is clear to you, but the term for that is 'bias'. If you are in a Western country, you're probably safer with TikTok because it is less influential than the US media companies and the Chinese spying and renditioning apparatus is less sophisticated. China are also much more passive (not exactly by choice, it must be said) and won't use the data for targeting missile strikes on your military leaders.
The experience that some Americans have, perhaps those who work in technology in particular, can make you fairly hostile to all of the above. I'm not denying that CIA or NSA or the US State Department use Meta or other social media systems to influence elections or governments abroad. I'm making two specific observations: 1) CIA/NSA are not part owners in those companies, and that's a very significant difference from how TikTok exists, where Bytedance is a CCP controlled organization and is part owner in the subsidiary that operates in the US; and 2) My hostility to TikTok is an extension of my hostility to Meta et al.
Eventually our discussion will horseshoe and we'll end up saying basically the same thing. These companies are all terrible, but the specific defense of TikTok will remain bizarre to me, because when you admit that Facebook can influence or tip elections you have to also admit that TikTok can do this too. And it's reasonable to ban it because it's controlled by a power that has publicly stated it wishes to harm the United States.
>I have no doubt it is clear to you, but the term for that is 'bias'.
It is not "bias" to point out that there is a difference between putting dissenters in prison camps and what the US did to Assange. Both are bad, but to imagine these things as the same is a bridge too far for me.
Reproductive health laws and book bans in the USA notwithstanding. And we wonder why faith in institutions is plummeting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
How many other extraordinary practices without a legal framework does the US government have?
Biden chose to have private intelligence groups monitor social media because they circumvent people's rights. What other rights do they abuse?
I'm genuinely trying to think of a good-faith argument for why Chinese tech firms are less trustworthy than American tech firms, but I honestly can't think of one.
But absolutely agreed -- as a user, I can't trust any of these governments or companies. The only things I do trust are E2EE services that don't collect unnecessary personal data in the first place.
I'm from the United States and I want this app banned. While the things you cite are or could be bad, it's entirely irrelevant to dealing with an app that is demonstrably a psychological control system. You're upset that CIA or US Army spec ops kidnapped people from your country? Imagine the United States injecting a social media system into your country that brainwashes people into thinking that they deserved it. TikTok can do this.
I agree with the poster before, I don't see the big difference here
You admit that social media is bad and increases suicide rates, yes? Okay great, seems logical then to ban the app that's run by a country that has set out to actively degrade the country the app is deployed in.
Here's how I know that TikTok is some sort of psyop: it's an entirely separate app in China. The algorithm does different things, explicitly. I don't know why people are so hostile to the idea that finally we've found a capitalistic company that should be punished for exploiting people. That Meta and Google behave badly is entirely irrelevant, and you and everyone else doing the same whataboutism dance knows it.
I honestly don't care. I don't use either and actively dislike all of these echo chambers. If it's for me ban all of them, or let them get even worse I don't care. It doesn't influence me at all.
But this is just a shitshow, cold war on a weird social level. This is not against tiktok this is obviously mainly a topic to talk bad about China.
Can you explain that a bit more? Of course it's going to behave differently. Any serious multinational is going to tailor their offerings to local preferences. A McDonald's in India sells a significantly different menu than one in Indiana. As for it being a seperate app rather than clicking a country flag during onboarding or whatever, I can see plenty of reasonable technical reasons for that.
I'd think they probably have even more freedom than most players to do so, because they didn't have to play to significant established brand expectations on arrival.
LOL! Please reread thus again until you lol too :D
Now what is an American company? Well, I don't really have a clue, companies certainly aren't patriotic citizens and we have no expectation of that even if they're entirely domestic... but once they're global? Well, then they can just jump their headquarters around to get the most advantageous tax laws and liability.
We should hold all social media companies to the same level of accountability because while TikTok might be openly cozy to the chinese government if you think any corporations are on the side of the American people I have a bridge to sell you.
https://prosperousamerica.org/ccp-takes-board-seat-at-byteda...
This whole thing is so strange. People in the US were so concerned about Russia running ads for a few thousand dollars in 2016 during the elections but are now ok with TikTok being controlled by CCP?
Honestly, I think this is refreshing. If anything, it's an acknowledgement that the info gathered and shared by social media to their respective governments is indeed, very useful.
Sure, it might be hypocritical. But it's a win, either way.
I think it'd be more productive for the US Congress to regulate the online space and the (ab)use of people's data/identity regardless of where the company is based in than to downright ban foreign companies. The latter seems rather... un-American.
If TikTok is “not a threat” then neither is Facebook and Google. End of story.
Its just bizzare to know that China bans those companies yet US allows Chinese social media companies to run in US.
It's not that simple. China has laws that US social media/search engine companies are not willing to follow but AFAICT TikTok abides by every US law that exists.
America cant keep its promises to its citizens and do what you are describing at the same time. It's now choosing the latter and chipping away at the former.
You should read the RESTRICT act that just passed.
"Never let a good crisis (real or manufactured) go to waste" always works on an amnesiatic society. At some point the pro-tiktok ban crowd will realize just how much of their 1st and 4th amendment rights they have lost.
Yes, Tik Tok developers are likely to use the algorithm to help defend the company.
> America cant keep its promises to its citizens and do what you are describing at the same time. It's now choosing the latter and chipping away at the former.
What specific promise are you referring to?
>1st and 4th amendment rights
Read the RESTRICT Act and tell me you honestly believe it isn't vague enough to be abused.
No one is claiming that America has "banned abortion" despite it's unavailable for 1/3 of American women, i.e. those living in the 11 states that have banned it[0].
[0] https://reproductiverights.org/abortion-illegal-11-states/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taiwans-military-us-arms-...
1 America is the superpower
2 they want to destroy any and all competition
When powers clash things happen. See WW1. At least war is unlikely since both sides have nukes.
Is it any surprise that they want to ban the tool that not only is the biggest competitor for their investments - which pay them hundreds of millions of dollars - but also tells its users where to find the very corruption that they try so hard to cover up?
Do you want to try testing that feature out on the upper echelons of the CCP?
It is a problem that we have an unequal exchange with the PRC over social media companies, and that the situation with American businesses under American law and situation with PRC businesses under PRC law subject to the Politburo of the CCP are equivalent, and shouldn’t be ignored by Congress because they’ll look bad or look like hypocrites. They already look bad and like hypocrites on a daily basis, but they still have a responsibility to the American people to investigate what appears to be an asset of the PRC government that only appears to be a private business operating in the American market and address it through law if necessary.
Don’t forget these are the same people who spirited away Jack Ma until he toed the party line. There is no such thing as a private corporation in the PRC whilst it is subject to the CCP’s political regime.
Congress sucks, but it is a notable distinction that despite how much they suck, they also make their investments public information per laws they chose to pass.
Can't find that in China, though.
This isn't a feature of TikTok. Someone mentioned it on TikTok.
> In April 2021, a state-owned enterprise owned by the Cyberspace Administration of China and China Media Group, the China Internet Investment Fund, purchased a 1% stake in ByteDance's main Chinese entity and placed a government official, Wu Shugang, on its board of directors.
Pretending this is about human rights abuses is simply a farce. The US has, and continues to support human rights abuse wherever it deems it advantageous.
The recent witch hunt has done more damage to the US than TikTok was ever likely to.
This is not about privacy.
TikTok/CCP supporters keep dragging it in that direction to avoid the main issue.
It is about an adversarial government having access to the US population while shutting off US companies unfairly. It is about national security and fair trade.
> The recent witch hunt has done more damage to the US than TikTok was ever likely to.
And you have data to support that?
I was neutral about this when starting out but seeing the same weak pro-TikTok arguments repeated in different forms, have pushed to the other side.
You were the one to bring human rights into the conversation: "with one of the worst human rights violations in the modern world".
> It is about an adversarial government
The US has spent the last decade using China as a way to score political points at home, after spending the prior three decades moving the majority of their manufacturing there. China is far from perfect but from my perspective the US have been the ones fostering an adversarial relationship.
> And you have data to support that?
I'll qualify that statement as my personal opinion but from my perspective your politicians just spent a day engaging in an embarrassingly transparent attempt at stoking fear and mistrust. The main result of which was showing the world how deeply incompetent many of them are.
Buddy Carter confidently believes that TikTok is tracking it's users emotional response through pupil dilation but has no comprehension of why you'd need to identify someone's eyes to put a motion tracking filter over them[1]. According to Mr. Carter, TikTok isn't doing enough to protect younger users but thinks that asking a user their age and checking whether or not the users public videos align with the age they declared is "creepy".
Dan Crenshaw used his time to state that Chinese law requires it's citizens to co-operate with their national intelligence agencies. That might have been a good point if not for the fact that TikTok's CEO, the person Crenshaw was questioning, is not Chinese.
Richard Hudson proved himself unable of forming a coherent question as to whether TikTok attempts to access other devices on a WiFi network. Instead asking "So if I have a TikTok app on my phone and my phone is on my home WiFi network, does TikTok access that network?"
> Access to the US population while shutting off US companies unfairly. It is about national security and fair trade.
The average American is at much more risk from their own government's surveillance apparatus than China's. America has never been interested in fair trade, only trade which furthers American interests. There's no "fairness" in a financially poorer country having it's domestic players pushed out of their own markets by companies that can afford to lose more than the country's GDP.
> I was neutral about this when starting out but seeing the same weak pro-TikTok arguments repeated in different forms, have pushed to the other side.
Ah yes, TikTok have been famously adversarial and haven't taken any steps to assuage privacy or security concerns. They aren't a legally separate entity, they aren't already working with Oracle to process US data and they haven't already moved the storage of that data to Oracle's servers in the US either[2]:
> As of October, all new U.S. user data was being stored inside the country. The company started deleting all historic U.S. user data from non-Oracle servers this month, in a process expected to be completed this year, Chew said.
> access to U.S. data is managed by U.S. employees through a separate entity called TikTok U.S. Data Security, which is run independently of ByteDance and monitored by outside observers.
By all means, ban TikTok from the devices of government and security personnel. Banning it entirely will only cool the relationship between China and the US even further, followed by a resulting loss in global influence. The lack of support for the sanctions on Russia proves how much damage the antagonistic approach has already caused.
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/25/tech/tiktok-user-reaction...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZDpJHl6amo
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-tiktok-ceo-...
In part, the campaign against Tiktok is a campaign for SF based big tech to hold the monopoly on people's attention. As a newer startup, Tiktok has not entrenched itself the way that other tech companies have in DC yet.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/22/1165249928/tiktok-congress-he...
> Tiktok's lobbying tops $5.4M in 2022 as it brings its charm offensive to Congress
> As a newer startup, Tiktok has not entrenched itself the way that other tech companies have in DC yet.
Any measure quantifying that? TikTok is not a usual startup. It has the whole force of CCP behind it. So calling it a "young startup" is disingenuous.
Has anyone made a credible argument for why top national leaders should be allowed to stock-pick?
(Rather than required to put any investments into total-market index funds, which is good enough for the little people.)
Another is that it'd be unfair to politicians who think that market indexes are a bad idea.
How do they stop people from using the TikTok website instead?
I've never used TikTok other than occasionally clicking a link that takes me to a video on their website, but from what I'm gleaning from a little Googling what using one of their mobile apps gives you really just one big difference:
• You can shoot video from within the app, and add music and do some editing, and upload to TikTok.
If you just use the web you can upload video, but it is up to you to find something to shoot it, add music, and edit.
So...not as convenient for the people creating the content since there will be more steps involving more separate applications, but it doesn't sound like the website will be much of a downgrade for people who just ant to watch.
Also, what happens in a year or two when Apple releases a new version of iOS that allows using third-party stores and side loading to comply with EU regulations? Do we think Apple is going to maintain a separate version of iOS for the EU and the rest of the world, or will they allow the third-party stores and side loading everywhere?
Plenty of governments do this for sites like the pirate bay... does the US do it for any sites right now?
It seems like this is "just" videos, but that's not necessarily correct - it is true that it "is videos", but "it's just videos" presumes that there is no noteworthy metaphysical pheomenon going on.....but if you are on TikTok, and got these congressional hearings into your feed (tons of my feed was yesterday, since I hearted every one that came up), seeing video after video of congress people OBVIOUSLY reading from a coordinated script, OBVIOUSLY lying/acting, the emperor OBVIOUSLY having no clothes.....it is surreal. Video after video of different congress people doing the same thing, literally putting on a performance, demonstrating that American politics IS IN FACT fake, a literal illusion / magic trick, unmistakably....this is DEVASTATING from a geopolitics perspective.
And in trying to put this genie back in the bottle, my feeling is that they may have shot themselves in the foot. What I have experienced is being experienced by millions of other people (lots have made videos mocking their politicians, but I don't think many people see through it as much as I, see my "Boiled Frog" reference above) - the cat is out of the bag. A MASSIVE exploit in the armour of the US regime has been revealed, analogous to Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star. Nothing so dramatic will happen here at least in the short run, but the idea is now out in the wild, to some degree. And that's why TikTok is so dangerous: it's ability to transmit ideas from the mind of one human being into the mind of another human being - this is The Way. Of course, "duh, that's 'just' communicating, get out of here with your conspiracy theories[1], etc etc etc", I've heard it all before. This is sub-perceptual heuristics not just perceiving reality, but generating reality. Now if THAT idea ever got out into the wild, they'd have even more trouble.
May you live in interesting times!
[1] One of the most potent remotely callable algorithms that has somehow ended up in the mind of most every single node in this system we're stuck in - one of many. It would be a real shame if people started to figure out how this system runs, if they somehow learned how to think outside of the invisible box that's been built around them. Humans are very much like ChatGPT, it can be observed, in massive quantities - people are going to start noticing things like this, and I think there is a very good chance the puzzle pieces will start to fall into place...and then maybe, the gig will finally be up. If citizens of all nations came to this realization more or less simultaneously, I think it could literally change the world. TikTok may not accomplish it, but ~~the~~ A path to it is now known. Even worse (for those running the show): these large language models are also revealing many interesting nuances about reality that were formerly very difficult if not impossible to see.
Now what about Facebook/Instagram/Twitter? Are the other social media platforms not also capable of/suspectable to propaganda campaigns?
Nothing to get too worried about though, if any of this was important surely you'd have been told by an expert of some sort by now.
> not as convenient for the people creating the content...
Yeah, and that little inconvenience is day and night. That's why TikTok got popular at the first place. Convenience. Pepople can always record videos and share them to others since digital camera is a thing.
If you don't actually use it regularly then you don't know. Their in-app editor tools is best in class for rapid, convenient social media content (as compared to YouTube, Snapchat or Instagram).
Everyone of these think they are the great champions of Humam rights and democracy but in reality all are bad
The CCP is trash, and the US government is far better (it has elections, for one thing) but I suggest we should be concerned about any attempt to manipulate the populace.
This works, because we're stupid.
Cambridge Analytica anyone? Did we all just forget? That wasn't even Chinese influence and still it had tremendous impact on the US (and how her citizens view each other).
These comparisons get weird ...
They just happened to have TikTok in the crosshairs because of the fear of China. The broken clock strikes again.
There is no national consensus on internet privacy. Most Americans simply don't care, certainly not enough to give up convenience. The minority who do are politically disengaged. To the degree there is consensus, it's on commons, e.g. national security.
This should not be a surprise to anyone.
Alternatively, the Federal Agencies (which do pay decently btw) end up implementing Policies and Directives on their own that tend to make sense. Congress is a laggard compared to unilateral action that Agencies and Regulators like the SEC, CISA, DoE, DoT, etc can take, but those actions are only bandaids because they can be rolled back when bosses are changed.
This is not an equal exchange founded on principles of free trade and respect for any kind of free speech. So it is not simple either.
This (probable) technology transfer shouldn’t be happening but not because this shouldn’t now happen; we should never have been in this position to begin with but we are.
Apple is the largest smartphone brand in China. GM is a major car brand in China. China has bought huge numbers of Boeing airplanes. I could go down the list, but you get the point.
Social media is a special case, because China has political censorship, which Facebook and Google were unwilling to go along with.
Why? Most things aren't binary.
I mean, you may not care about that discussion--and that's fine, you do you--but to ignore the circumstances around this situation means that once decided that it's going to happen, and therefore must be "good", we have to start asking other questions like, "Meta has been kinda lame lately, why don't we force them to sell to a someone we like better?" and "Probably Google, too?"
Can't they just sanction the parent company if they want to kill it that badly? Control of the sanctioned entities list is under the executive branch, so all they have to do is place Bytedance on that list; no CDN in the country or App Store is allowed to do business with them, TikTok is gone overnight. The website would probably be accessible and there is always the sideloading gambit but it would perform like crap.
What am I missing?
Radical suggestion: stop everyone from doing bad things.
I personally struggle understanding adults installing this app at all, and the fact that it targets mostly oblivious youngsters is pervasive.
So the thing to stop everyone from is "letting a maybe-hostile foreign power push an agenda via a software platform."
I don't think there's easy to ban behavior here.
We can easily react to American companies doing something like this, but how easy is it to go after a company which is based in another country and has been hostile towards America and American business for decades?
[1] https://file770.com/judge-decides-against-internet-archive/
I feel like it should be possible to have a cop-out, like "Online services doing business in the USA must offer US-based users data and privacy rights which are at least as strict as those of any other national jurisdiction in which the service does business." The tag line for press appearances would be "Americans using online services should have just as much control over their data as Europeans." The line for industry lobbyists is that by effectively adopting GDPR, multinationals don't actually have a meaningfully increased compliance cost.
In this case, there's a conflict between the first amendment on one side and the congressional power to regulate foreign relations and largely judicially constructed executive powers around national security.
Of course there's a very strong legal argument you can make that the first amendment clearly trump the congressional power, and the national security powers are (to me) obvious bullshit from the outset. But this is largely irrelevant because it's much more convenient for all branches of government to pretend that this it's a gray area and decide it how they wish.
the reality on the ground is the only reality that matters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_Ho_Lee <-- taiwanese, lol.
Since 7.2% of Americans self-identify their ethnicity as Asian, I guess what you are saying is that a minimum of 70-80% of Asian-Americans actively encourage the removal of their own rights.
I find that a little hard to believe...
in other words, do you think 20% of asian americans are pro-actively doing anything about it?
Not just Asian Americans either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954