The Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act was introduced a month ago. Based on what I’ve read here it seems overly broad and gives the Commerce Secretary too much power. Could it be used to ban TikTok? Discord? Aimed at certain companies by the whim of politicians?
Whatever we should do to improve our national online security, this ain’t it (and it’s a bad look for the Biden administration that they didn’t push back on it harder IMHO).
It’s specifically intended to ban TikTok. Whether it will or not, I have no idea.
This bill really has the stench of a NatSec establishment wish list of powers they’ve wanted once a crisis/panic gave them the justification for it. If this passes I think it will give the feds (even more of) a blank check to arrest someone just because they feel like it and won’t do much to actually stop China’s spying. Democrats should be ashamed of considering giving these powers to a potential Trump or Desantis administration, and frankly people shouldn’t trust Democratic administrations with them either. I’m still waiting for my senators to take a position on this and this might be a rare time I actually call their offices.
And I cannot imagine that it actually does anything significant to hamper China’s efforts to spy on Americans. With the way technology works nowadays that is like trying to stop the rain.
Also I haven’t read the entire bill but it at least seems like this only applies to entities that are actually controlled by foreign adversaries, not American companies like google just selling our data to China.