Comment by remarkEon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by remarkEon | Hacker News Reader

The media coverage of this (and the title of this submission, which I argue should be changed to the actual title of the bill) are really confusing everyone - both in here and elsewhere.

There is a Senate bill[1] called "S.85 - No TikTok on United States Devices Act", which is very short and seems to only do one thing, and that's ban TikTok. This bill is in committee.

There is another Senate bill[2], called "S.686 - RESTRICT Act", which is the one linked in this submission and is the one everyone is - imo rightly - quite concerned about, because a bunch of stuff seemingly unrelated to TikTok is getting the Department of Homeland Security treatment. TikTok isn't even mentioned in the text of the act. This bill is also in committee.

I'm honestly left wondering if the RESTRICT Act is being intentionally amplified as "The Bill to Ban TikTok", because of how shitty it is, to give people the means to say "no we shouldn't pass this if the cost of banning TikTok is Patriot Act Part Deux", when in reality we shouldn't pass this bill anyway because it sucks.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/85/...

[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...

1. (D) TIMING.—The term “covered transaction” includes a current, past, or potential future transaction.

2. (I) A group, subgroup, or other association or organization whether or not organized for profit. [like an OSS project on github?]

3. (1) IN GENERAL.—It shall be unlawful for a person to violate, attempt to violate, conspire to violate, or cause a violation of any regulation, order, direction, mitigation measure, prohibition, or other authorization or directive issued under this Act, including any of the unlawful acts described in paragraph (2).

4. SEC. 5. Considerations. [the star of the show - read it]

Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are definitely touching more than 1M personal records and/or providing "communication". They are all subject to this bill. All their "transactions" are now subject to approval of Secretary of Commerce.

For example:

"State-of-the-art end-to-end encryption (powered by the open source Signal Protocol) keeps your conversations secure. We can't read your messages or listen to your calls, and no one else can either. Privacy isn’t an optional mode — it’s just the way that Signal works. Every message, every call, every time."

Isn't Signal also subject to this bill? Or better, who isn't subject to this bill?

Will starting/contributing to an OSS project in any of the Sec. 5 areas require consulting an attorney?

> All their "transactions" are now subject to approval of Secretary of Commerce.

That's half the point. A lot of people here are saying "Facebook will just sell your data to China".

Here's the line saying they can't.

The bill only applies to companies where a foreign national from an adversary country has a "controlling holding". i.e., none of the companies you listed or any other American owned company are subject to it at all.

I think the RESTRICT Act is the one being held up as the ban bill because it's bipartisan and considered most likely to 1) actually move to a vote because of that and 2) creates a legal framework for a ban rather than just implementing one which is likely to be unwound by a court and found unconstitutional without it

Why is S.85 likely to be unwound by the courts? It's with a different committee and cites a different act for its legal authority.

Courts (especially the current SCOTUS) seem pretty wary of expanding executive authority granted ambiguously under acts like the "International Emergency Economic Powers Act." Just my 2c.

I agree with the sentiment but just wanted to note that this is a legislative bill. often the courts strike down executive action saying that they should get help from Congress, which they're doing here

Yes, and there is some specific text in there or another bill that has a carveout for platforms that promote speech or enable personal communications -- I believe it was originally to protect newspaper and radio but has been interpreted to also include social media platforms

Bill of attainder?

>TikTok isn't even mentioned in the text of the act.

Because that would make it a bill of attainder which is unconstitutional.

This is a sinophobic media war conflating several ideas:

1. Games, social media, or other personal apps on government devices is a terrible idea. They shouldn't be there to begin with.

2. Making a big deal of banning them from US government devices is a symbolic anti-China move.

3. Banning US consumers from using a particular transnational app. How exactly would that be enforced? How would it not run afoul of the 1st a.? Will the US gov get into the business of banning apps, books, games, and any particular media it doesn't approve of because it didn't happen to originate in America?

4. Forcing a transnational app to either move its data to the US or sell to a US owner. Russia did this and now they're an international pariah. How exactly does this square with laissez-faire free trade?

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