Left & Right Unite Against Surveillance Bill Disguised As TikTok Ban

Legislation is making its way through Congress that could give the government unprecedented power to snoop on your internet activity – all under the disguise of preventing China from spying on your internet activity. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Litigation is making its way through Congress that could give the government unprecedented power to snoop on your internet activity all under the disguise of preventing China from spying on your internet activity. Wow. You know what, let me jump back in time. The first time you saw this story about TikTok, you know what you said to me, you said Pap, let me tell you where it's going. And we sat and talked about it and we said, absolutely this is where it's going. Tell us where we are with this internet ridiculous story.

We're actually even worse with this legislation than I would've thought because what this, the Restrict Act is what it's called, and there's no mention of TikTok in it, even though it's supposed to be the bill to ban TikTok and China from taking your data. And what it does is it creates this board controlled by the president of the United States because the Democrats I think don't understand that Biden's not gonna be president forever.

Yeah. Or maybe not even the next time probably, you know.

Yeah. So, you know, you're gonna put a horrible person, you know, maybe there already is one in charge. But anyway, it creates this board that is gonna have broad jurisdiction, no judicial oversight to accuse any American of engaging in illegal activity online and they immediately get that user's entire internet history. Their online purchase information, everything that person has ever done online. And you can't appeal it. You can't take it to a court. You cannot challenge it. This is dictatorship.

Well, okay. There is no, there's no appellate process. There's no review at all. The committee that makes the decision was appointed by the president that makes the decision, I don't really like this. Let's wipe it out. There's, you have no idea even why they've wiped, even why you've become a target. They don't have a duty to even tell you why you've become. Mark Warner, now, Mark Warner, Democrat from Virginia, he's the guy behind this. He's there with John Thune. And they're, they say, oh, this is brilliant. Mark Warner, Democrat from Virginia is the guy that helped draft this. He's the one pushing it. And this is like a nightmare. You know, I hate, I hate to use 1984. Everybody, you know, every jerkwater in the world, 1984. But this really is.

It truly is. And look, you could be facing 20 years in prison if you use a VPN to access a banned website like TikTok.

Yeah.

Or up to a million dollars in fines. So if you get on TikTok with a VPN, if we've banned it, you could have to pay a million dollars just to be on TikTok for a few minutes. This is insane.

Here's my prediction. Biden is not gonna be reelected. Okay. He's not. I don't know who it is, but he's not gonna be reelected. You're gonna have the Republican, maybe another Democrat, I don't, I'm not sure. But you're gonna have a different person making these decisions. So if you're saying, oh, well I'm good with Biden making these decisions, you better be able to say, oh, I'm good with Trump making these decisions or DeSantis making these decisions. I'm fine with that. You better be able to say that before you swallow this ridiculous story. Right?

Absolutely. And I'll tell you how bad this legislation is. You have AOC, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Josh Hawley, Jamaal Bowman, conservative media outlets, Fox News, liberal media outlets, everybody is united in warning about how terrible this is. And when you've managed to unite the entire country with how bad your legislation is, that should be clue number one.

I have got to read this. Let's take a second. This is the response, this is the committee's response when ProPublica asked them, what the hell, what are you doing?