Can Congress Ban TikTok?
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."
--First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
When James Madison set about to draft the Bill of Rights -- the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution -- he was articulating what lawyers and philosophers and judges call "negative rights." A positive right grants a privilege, like a driver's license. A negative right restrains the government from interfering with a preexisting right. In order to emphasize his view that the freedom of speech preexisted the government, Madison insisted that the word "the" precede "freedom of speech" in the First Amendment.
If the freedom of speech preceded the government, where did it come from?
Speech is a natural right; it comes from our humanity. The framers of the Constitution and the ratifiers of the Bill of Rights understood and recognized this. Congress doesn't grant the freedom of speech; rather it is prohibited absolutely from interfering with it. In the years following the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the courts began applying the restrictions in the First Amendment to the states and their municipalities and subdivisions.
Today, the First Amendment bars all government -- federal, state and local -- and all branches of government -- legislative, executive and judicial -- from interfering with the freedom of speech.
You'd never know this listening to Congress today. The same Congress that can't balance a budget or count the number of foreign military bases the feds own, that thinks it can right any wrong and tax any event, that has borrowed over $34 trillion and not paid back any of it; the same Congress now wants to give the President of the United States -- whomever might occupy that office -- the lawful power to suppress websites he thinks are spying on their users or permitting foreign governments to influence what folks see on the sites. All this is an effort to ban the popular website for young folks called TikTok and force its owners to sell its assets.
Here is the backstory.
Throughout American history, we have suffered from mass fears. In the 1790s, it was fear of the French and of Native Americans. In the 1860s, it was fear of African Americans and fear of Confederates. In the 1900s, it was fear of anarchists, Nazis and Communists. In the first quarter of the present century, the government has whipped up fear of terrorists, Russians, Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin and now the Chinese.
In his dystopian novel, "1984," George Orwell analyzed the totalitarian mind and recognized the need that totalitarians have for fear and hatred. They know that when folks are afraid, they will bargain away the reality of liberty for the illusion of safety. Without fear and hatred, totalitarians have fewer tools for control of the population.
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