The New RESTRICT Act needs all of our attention

I’ve seen this bill being tossed around on some of the new “TIK TOK could be banned” headlines and wanted to share it with you. It’s far worse than I thought it could be and if passed it will affect us all.

For those wondering this is essentially the PATRIOT Act, but for the internet. It gives the government any reason that it deems as national security an avenue to access your data, your procedures, and to enforce these measure harshly.

Can I use a VPN? No. This Bill’s wording is so incredibly broad, meaning if it connects in any way that they see fit, it’ll stretch to every reach with the penalties being OH SHIT kind of penalties. I tried to find specifically the wording of VPN as was mentioned in several other subs but couldn’t find it myself. See Section (11) under subsection (c) for penalties on these matters.

(c) Criminal Penalties.— (1) IN GENERAL.—A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids or abets in the commission of an unlawful act described in subsection (a) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both.

But you’re just paranoid like all r/cc users! Mmm maybe but perhaps not. Currency in and of itself is incredibly important to the US government. There’s a lot of language in this bill that’s too broad for me to accept as anything over than government overreach, here’s an example from the same Section (11):

(F) No person may engage in any transaction or take any other action with intent to evade the provisions of this Act, or any regulation, order, direction, mitigation measure, prohibition, or other authorization or directive issued thereunder.

THIS BILL IS NOT TO BAN TIK TOK, IT IS TO PUT A COLLAR ON THE INTERNET. IF THIS PASSES, WIDESPREAD ADOPTION IS NOT ONLY GONE FOREVER FOR THE US BUT IT’LL CONSTRICT GENERATIONS TO COME FROM BREAKING THROUGH THE GOVERNMENT’S FASCISTIC WAY OF DISCERNING WHO AMONG US ARE CRIMINALS BY OUR DATA.

Please read this bill, please let me know if I’m missing something. It’s important we all stay educated as this might be our first existential threat to crypto currencies. If they ban VPN with such a heavy penalty, who knows what’s next? 20 Years in jail for a emulating a game?

EDIT TO ADD BILL: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15

2nd EDIT: Data bills should always be something to look in to. I had a comment earlier where I said “They could just write a bill on outsourcing data to foreign servers.” Sounds easy? Well crypto could be seen as that data. If we want to preserve what we’ve all built here, I’d hope you, like me, are going to keep a close eye on data bills going forward.

3rd EDIT: There are those who are assuring me it won’t affect crypto so here’s another passage:

Section (3) (a)

(1) poses an undue or unacceptable risk of—

(B) catastrophic effects on the security or resilience of the critical infrastructure or digital economy of the United States;

4th and Last Edit: Of course this bill only targets foreign entities with malice. I’m not here to misrepresent the bill or help criminals and adversaries take advantage of Americans. My concern is that these measures can be applied past, present, and future tense and that it could be abused in the future by adding a country out of favor with a party or removing a country who paid enough into politics. My concern is that our political system in the states has not been reliable and I’m concerned a bad actor could use this as a weapon. Please read it all, it’s not that bad past the definition sections, but I want to reiterate my intent with the post was simply to discuss what I still see as a worrisome bill that can be amended for generations to come.