Technology

The national ban has also presumably been crafted by much more experienced lawyers and lawmakers than the Montana ban. Presumably folks that understand the law better than either of us.

Unconstitutional laws are deliberately passed all the time. They happen for political reasons. For example, GOP-led state congress from various states repeatedly tried to pass abortion bans even while Roe V Wade was still active. Why? They are not stupid, they knew it would get stricken down by the courts.

The reason is a) it shows to their base they are trying to do something about abortion. It's essentially political theater.

b) by continously challenging the law, you can hope for a court case that potentially sets useful precedence for the future. For example Crawford v. Marion County Election Board in 2008. After passing many voter id laws that got repeatedly struck down, eventually it led to a court case that set a better precedence for voter id laws.

If you keep trying, eventually you get a nice ruling and all of a sudden the unconstitutional law you passed is a little less unconstitutional. So next time, you can go a little further and keep pushing the boundaries

So even though we had very strong amendments in the constitution to protect right to vote (15th amendment, 19th amendment, 24th amendment, 26th amendment) by repeatedly challenging those amendments by passing unconstitutional laws, the GOP has effectively managed to bypass the constitution in many states by passing voter id laws that have the simple purpose of getting blacks to vote less

They infringe upon rights the constitution explicitly gives to the citizens by sheer persistence.

IMO comparing a TikTok ban to some major infringement even remotely close to an authoritarian country ... it's just wrong

The reason it's authoritarian is because the government is playing that game I mentioned above. It's clear this law has nothing to do with data collection.

They are using that justification because they don't have any legal leg to stand on if they named the real reason - they want to ban specific content. Instead, they claim they are content neutral and are doing it for national security.

So they are deliberately bending the boundaries of the law in order to reduce personal freedoms and give the government more control over the media that shows up on your screen.

If this isn't a step towards authoritarianism, I don't know what is. The DNC is now holding hands with the GOP as they continue to degrade the remainder of legitimacy that American democratic institutions have left while marching towards WW3

And you and many others in this thread are cheering it on, letting your xenophobia be used as a tool to consolidate power by the federal government