TikTok may be on the verge of getting banned in the U.S. as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle appear poised to pass the measure over national security concerns about the Chinese-owned social media app. But not everyone is on board. In addition to a handful of progressive Democrats and Republican Sen. Rand Paul who stand in opposition to a ban, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson is also sounding the alarm about the legislation.
It’s not that Carlson likes the app—it’s just that the devil is in the details.
“This bill isn’t really about banning TikTok,” he argued. “It’s never about what they say it is. Instead, this bill would give enormous and terrifying new powers to the federal government to punish American citizens and regulate how they communicate with one another."
For example, the bill would regulate "certain transactions between persons in the United States and foreign adversaries." Now, what's a foreign adversary and who gets to decide? The secretary of commerce and the department and the DNI, not the Congress, get to decide what foreign adversaries are. Well, that ought to trip a switch in your brain and then the transactions with foreign adversaries would include "any acquisition, importation, transfer, installation, dealing in or use of any information and communications technology, product or service, including ongoing activities such as mandated services, data transmission, software updates, repairs, or the provision of data hosting services." Well, that's pretty broad.
Under this bill, if you engage in any of that with a so-called foreign adversary as determined by, in this case, the Biden administration, that would allow the Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimando, and the director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, to decide whether you're acting in the "interest of a foreign adversary."
Again, that's another term that the executive branch, the secretary of commerce, gets to define without the interference of Congress. So, if the Biden administration decides that you're doing this, then the secretary of commerce can then enforce "any mitigation measure to address any risk arising from any covered transaction with any person or with respect to any property subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." Oh, these covered transactions can involve "current past or potential future transactions" and the mitigation measures include, but are not limited to, throwing American citizens in prison for 20 years. (Fox News)
Carlson argued the legislation is hardly about banning the social media app, but instead introduces “totalitarianism into our system" and attempts to make the U.S. more like China by controlling the American population.
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