RESTRICT Act, Labeled a ‘TikTok Ban,’ Includes Jail Sentences, Huge Fines for American Citizens

The Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act or RESTRICT Act, sold to the public as a “TikTok ban,” does far more than simply ban the Chinese-linked platform.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) allows the federal government to unilaterally designate any nation a “foreign adversary,” ban online services and products even indirectly controlled by an entity in their jurisdiction, and then penalize Americans who conduct virtually any sort of transaction with them.

The penalties for violation of the Act — which could be as simple as using a VPN service to access a banned product like TikTok — are extraordinarily severe.

The first tool in the government’s arsenal is a civil penalty of up to $250,000, imposed by the Secretary of Commerce on anyone who conducts a transaction that violates the act.

As to what counts as a transaction, the bills takes an impossibly broad approach, classifying it as “any acquisition, importation, transfer, installation, dealing in, or use of any information and communications technology product or service, including ongoing activities such as managed services, data transmission, software updates, repairs, or the provision of data hosting services, or a class of such transactions,” as well as “any other transaction, the structure of which is designed or intended to evade or circumvent the application of this Act.”

But the $250,000 fine is the least of the penalties. American citizens found to be in violation of the Act would also face a potential criminal fine of up to $1 million, as well as a jail sentence of up to 20 years.

And then there’s asset seizure: bill allows the feds to seize and access a laundry list of devices and services of American citizens.

These include hardware devices like phones and computers, access points to the internet including cable and wireless, “e-commerce technology and services, including any electronic techniques for accomplishing business transactions” (a definition sufficiently broad to include every cryptocurrency), and even “quantum computing, post-quantum cryptography,” “advanced robotics,” and “biotechnology.”

On top of all that, the bill grants the government immunity from public oversight, restricting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to the enforcement of the bill.

The RESTRICT Act is essentially an American version of the Chinese “Great Firewall,” which cuts its citizens off from a wide swathe of the world wide web.

But even in China, where numerous apps are banned, VPN use does not automatically lead to imprisonment, with large numbers of Chinese citizens using VPNs to access popular apps and video games — and largely getting away with it.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.