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You can't be prosecuted under S.686 for accessing TikTok, with or without a VPN; the Act deals specifically with financial and contractual relations between foreign entities and US entities. So, sure, you could face up to twenty years if you, say, take knowing and affirmative steps to evade a specific Treasury declaration regarding your business (say, by concealing the fact that the People's Liberation Army has been funding your cybersecurity company, or that you're buying suspiciously-inexpensive 5G radios for your telecom company from Iran), but that's the sort of thing you'd expect to face jail time for regardless.

I'm skeptical about the RESTRICT Act -- treating TikTok as a one-off case rather than putting meaningful federal restrictions around the use of personal data tells you where Congress' mind is here -- but the OP's fearmongering is just ridiculous.

I came to the same conclusion. I feel like people are just scrolling to the punishment section without actually having read anything above it.

>by concealing the fact that the People's Liberation Army has been funding your cybersecurity company, or that you're buying suspiciously-inexpensive 5G radios for your telecom company from Iran)

What if a VPN service like Mullvad is partially or fully purchased by an "adversary" and added to a banned list unbeknownst to you, could continuing to buy VPN services using crypto or cash get you up to 20 years in jail by your reading?

While I agree it is a bit of a clickbait headline, it is all about the precedent when it comes to this kind of thing. I think you are severely downplaying the risk here. Using vague language like that opens the door for them to crack down even harder.

The government wants to monitor everything people do online and VPNs give people a way to opt out of that surveillance. It is a typical legislative move to add extra provisions all in the name of “banning the evil, Chinese spy app”. There is no reason to believe this will stop at TikTok. What if people use VPNs to get around other censorship that may or may not exist now? What if people use VPNs to access content using BitTorrent? Who is to say they won’t crack down on that that stuff next?

Governments love to take advantage of situations to expand their control think about what happened after 9/11.

Apparently this is exactly what is going on here: https://twitter.com/Fynnderella1/status/1640016692305711105

>I think you are severely downplaying the risk here. Using vague language like that opens the door for them to crack down even harder.

>The government wants to monitor everything people do online and VPNs give people a way to opt out of that surveillance. It is a typical legislative move to add extra provisions all in the name of “banning the evil, Chinese spy app”. There is no reason to believe this will stop at TikTok. What if people use VPNs to get around other censorship? What if people use VPNs to access copyrighted content using BitTorrent? Who is to say that they won’t crack down on that that stuff next?

I'm not downplaying the risk of the bill, only pointing out the rhetoric is false and misleading. Based on the tweets and the article there aren't any anti-VPN or anti-anti-censorship tool provisions in the bill. Now, you can still argue that passing this bill sets us on a slippery slope to get encrypted chats banned or whatever, but it's dishonest to say that people are facing "20 year jail sentences" for using VPNs when they're not. Pointing that out isn't "severely downplaying the risk ".

This is about using VPNs to avoid financial controls on transactions with a banned organization.

That's a different concern to monitoring communications. It's more like the Bianance thing where they were "we can't have US customers but we only ban you based on your IP address. Here's a link about how VPNs let you change your IP address".

>Whhich specific part of the bill allows "VPN users" to be punished with "20 year jail sentences"? Does the bill even ban VPNs

The bill allows communication technology to be investigated for vague security concerns, and then allows punishing those that are deemed threats.

This means they could investigate and punish some VPN provider, and someone could wake up one day and suddenly be committing a crime by connecting to the same VPN as the day before (I think? They may need their subscription to renew before a crime, I only skimmed the law). Sure there'd be an announcement, but it could still end in a potential 20 year sentence for connecting to a VPN.

It could even be a vague connection, like Russia is using this third party VPN provider to undermine democracy, so despite really doing nothing wrong we're banning the VPN.

You can certainly argue it's unlikely the law would be applied this way, or that users aren't at great risk of being targeted. But the headline claim is broadly true.

you think it’s reasonable to put someone in jail for 20 years for logging into a social media website?

also: how are they going to determine that you did? what if you have malware on one of your devices and it accesses something banned?

Hahahahahaha tell it to the judge!

Jeez they said nothing of the sort. They were pointing out the bill was not about vpns.

If there was a bill about preventing access to child porn. Including using a vpn. Imagine there was a headline ‘vpn users risk 20 years…’. The point is applicable in that fictional case and this case.

Don’t worry, enforcement will be highly selective.

>also: how are they going to determine that you did?

Same as any crime. They have to prove that you did it (both that you did the act, and that you intended to do the act) to a judge or a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

> what if you have malware on one of your devices and it accesses something banned?

If your concern is about being framed via malware, there are plenty of existing ways of doing so. eg. laws against CSAM or laws against funding terrorists (hope that the malware doesn't use your paypal session to send money to ISIS!).

>>also: how are they going to determine that you did?

>Same as any crime. They have to prove that you did it (both that you did the act, and that you intended to do the act) to a judge or a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

...after taking your hardware and placing you under house arrest for a time, then putting you under a gag order (national security) while simultaneously setting up preventative monitoring of future VPN use, until the case resolves.

It would still be more productive to criticise the bill instead of the article.