Can Congress Ban TikTok?

What is the government's problem with TikTok? The feds want to use fear and hatred of the Chinese government in order to regulate the sources of data and information that Americans can consult. They have projected upon the government of China the very same unlawful and unconstitutional assaults on natural rights that the feds themselves perpetrate upon us.

Thus, in order to gain control over the American public, the deep state -- the parts of the government that do not change, no matter which political party is in power -- and its friends in Congress have advanced the myth that the Chinese government, which commands the loyalty of the owners of TikTok, might use the site to pass along misinformation or to spy on its users. The key word here is "might," as the intelligence officials who testified to Congress on this were unable to produce any solid evidence -- just fear -- that the Chinese government is doing this.

You can't make this up.

Remember the bumper stickers from the 1970s: "Don't steal. The government hates competition!" I thought of that line when analyzing this. Why? Because the federal government itself spies on every American who uses a computer or mobile device. The federal government itself captures every keystroke touched on every device in the U.S. The federal government itself captures all data transmitted into, out of and within the U.S. on fiber-optic cables. And the federal government itself told the Supreme Court earlier this week that it needs to be able to influence what data is available on websites in order to combat misinformation.

The federal government basically told the court that it -- and not individual persons -- should decide what we can read and from what sources. What the federal government did not reveal is its rapacious desire to control the free market in ideas.

Now back to the First Amendment.

The principal value underlying the freedom of speech is free will. We all have free will to think as we wish, to say what we think, to read what we want, to publish what we say. And we can do all this with perfect freedom. We don't need a government permission slip. The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to guarantee this freedom by keeping the government out of the business of speech -- totally and completely. This is the law of the land in modern Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Were this not the law, then the government could suppress the speech it hates and fears and support the speech of its patrons. And then the values that underly the First Amendment would be degraded and negated. The government has no moral or constitutional authority to spy on us or to influence our thoughts. Period.

Does the government work for us or do we work for the government? Have we consented to a nullification of free speech in deference to whomever might be living in the White House? Why do we repose the Constitution into the hands of those who subvert it?

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To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.