> Becoming China is not how you compete against China.
This proposal is actually substantially worse than the Great Firewall of China. The Chinese government doesn't particularly care if you use VPN's to get around the firewall, because they know that most people won't, and that's enough to meet their main goal, protecting domestic tech companies from competing with established US tech companies. The US is definitely going to be prosecuting individuals for using VPNs to read TeleSUR or whatever, though, because it's about controlling the narrative, not about protecting local industry.
> and that's enough to meet their main goal, protecting domestic tech companies from competing with established US tech companies.
You haven't experienced the GFW if you think that's the main goal. Oh, and please try telling your Chinese friends that "the govt doesn't particularly care about VPNs" and listen to what they yell at you.
Can you show me where it allows this in the actual bill, not a news report?
Because when I read the bill, it appears that penalties only apply to covered entities and covered transactions which are fairly narrowly defined, and don't include individuals accessing content. I question whether something like that could pass constitutional muster anyway.
My read of the text of the bill [1] looks like the intent is to grant the secretary of commerce, in partnership with doj, the ability to review, inspect and prohibit equipment and technology that's used in critical infrastructure or impacts nation security (an overly broad term) which are substantially owned by a foreign adversary.
On it's face, that doesn't seem like a bad thing, but I agree that some of the language is too broad. For example, I think it should require congressional review to deem a country a foreign adversary.
There's also concerning language that exempts all of it from judicial review, which I don't understand - is this even possible?
I've been seeing a lot of reporting on this that is inconsistent with the actual text of the bill. It's hard to tease out the truth of the legislation from the partisan flag carrying.
There's one really tricky clause in there that I also missed on my first pass: "The term “covered transaction” includes ANY OTHER TRANSACTION, the STRUCTURE of which is designed or intended to evade or circumvent the application of this Act, subject to regulations prescribed by the Secretary."
That clause adds a vast amount under the blanket of "covered transactions." At the minimum this would include the usage or offering of VPNs, TOR, or any sort of technology or connection that might be able to circumvent the methods the government will try to use. The "or" in the bill's clause also seems quite meaningful, as it clarifies that offering a service which CAN circumvent the restrictions is just as illegal as offering a service INTENDED to do so.
Beyond that, this thing's a monster of obfuscation. To even begin reading it you need to remove 'weak' OR statements. For one simple example, from Section 3 all the Secretary needs to do to justify 'imposing mitigation measures' against something is to show that it poses an "undue" risk to the "safety of United States persons." The language about national security or critical infrastructure, which you mentioned from the same section, are irrelevant as they're both subsets of 'undue risk to the safety of United States persons.'
> (a) In general.—The Secretary shall identify and refer to the President any covered holding that the Secretary determines, in consultation with the relevant executive department and agency heads, poses an undue or unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.
This means the Secretary of Commerce makes a determination about any entity that "poses an undue or unacceptable risk".
Where "covered holding" can be any non-US entity, or any entity "directed or controlled" by a non-US entity, so essentially, every entity but especially foreign entities.
> (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.
So you might think subsection (a) refers to something really terrible, but actually:
> (a) Unlawful acts.—
> (1) IN GENERAL.—It shall be unlawful for a person to violate, attempt to violate, conspire to violate, or cause a violation of any regulation, order, direction, mitigation measure, prohibition, or other authorization or directive issued under this Act, including any of the unlawful acts described in paragraph (2).
Where "paragraph (2)" goes on to describe every possible technical channel (mobile, LAN, satellite, cable, back-haul networks, etc).
This gives the Secretary of Commerce the ability to say that reading Russian or Chinese news, for example, is unlawful, because it is a risk to national security. If you use a VPN to access that news, you are guilty of this crime.
As long as there's 0 connection to restricted countries, that's probably the case.
But if your work involves logging into Alibaba for procurement or if you're a journalist that reads Weibo or something, you might be a felon, should the Secretary of Commerce recommend you to be.
This proposal is actually substantially worse than the Great Firewall of China. The Chinese government doesn't particularly care if you use VPN's to get around the firewall, because they know that most people won't, and that's enough to meet their main goal, protecting domestic tech companies from competing with established US tech companies. The US is definitely going to be prosecuting individuals for using VPNs to read TeleSUR or whatever, though, because it's about controlling the narrative, not about protecting local industry.