OPINION: The Restrict Act, A New Danger to Freedom

Sub­mit­ted by George McClellan

We have watched in won­der and amaze­ment as the size of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has grown expo­nen­tial­ly over the years, at the same time vague­ly aware that since Oba­ma our Con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms were being admin­is­tra­tive­ly erod­ed. We have unelect­ed bureau­crats that stay in pow­er through admin­is­tra­tions basi­cal­ly doing what they think the gov­ern­ment should do regard­less of who’s pres­i­dent and what they want, except for Joe Biden. The var­i­ous depart­ments and bureaus of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment are filled with these peo­ple and are col­lec­tive­ly known as the Deep State. Nixon com­plained of this and of course Don­ald Trump felt their neg­a­tive impuls­es as well.

Where did it start? A long time ago actu­al­ly but it was giv­en teeth with the 1984 Chevron vs Nat­ur­al Resources Defense Coun­cil, (Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC :: 467 U.S. 837 (1984) a Supreme Court deci­sion said: “A gov­ern­ment agency must con­form to any clear leg­isla­tive state­ments when inter­pret­ing and apply­ing a law, but courts will give the agency def­er­ence in ambigu­ous sit­u­a­tions as long as its inter­pre­ta­tion is rea­son­able.” That in effect, direct­ed the judi­cia­ry to favor gov­ern­ment author­i­ty in such cas­es effec­tive­ly abdi­cat­ing fed­er­al judi­cial author­i­ty over com­plaints brought before them because the bureau­cra­cy had bet­ter “experts” to guide the issues. We saw this with Dr. Fau­ci, the lying, con­niv­ing, cheat­ing “expert” on Covid-19 who all but ruined our econ­o­my with his pan­dem­ic fears. Courts were told to favor the gov­ern­ment over a com­plainant on the grounds of ‘exper­tise’ when inter­pret­ing ambigu­ous rules. That may be com­ing to an end with Trumps Supreme Court.

Now how­ev­er, the Sen­ate is once again med­dling with our free­doms. They are try­ing to cre­ate the “Restrict Act” the alleged pur­pose of which is to exer­cise some con­trol over inter­net mis­in­for­ma­tion from out­side sources. Think about that one!  Tik­Tok, the Chi­nese inter­net spy appli­ca­tion is the pre­sumed vil­lain in this exer­cise but, It would effec­tive­ly allow the Sec­re­tary of Com­merce to become a “Com­mis­sar of Com­merce.” “The RESTRICT Act” ignores any notions of checks and bal­ances by grant­i­ng sweep­ing pow­er to the Exec­u­tive branch to inter­vene in any and all types of eco­nom­ic trans­ac­tions. The bill’s intent is not lim­it­ed to Tik­Tok or oth­er inter­net-based com­pa­nies. It also grants the Sec­re­tary of Com­merce to inves­ti­gate any busi­ness in any way sub­ject to the juris­dic­tion of a for­eign adver­sary (Chi­na) to deter­mine if it pos­es unac­cept­able risks to our nation­al secu­ri­ty. The bill already des­ig­nates Chi­na, Rus­sia, Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba as for­eign adver­saries, but the RESTRICT Act would empow­er the Sec­re­tary of Com­merce to uni­lat­er­al­ly add any oth­er coun­try to the offi­cial ene­mies list. Here’s the kick­er: If passed, the RESTRICT Act would also empow­er fed­er­al bureau­crats to direct­ly pre­vent media out­lets like the New York Post from pub­lish­ing sto­ries like the one about Hunter Biden’s lap­top, a vio­la­tion of the first amend­ment. They don’t care at all.

The Restrict Act, fur­ther allows the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is cen­sor any con­ceiv­able online com­mu­ni­ca­tion with a pow­er so broad that even the Sec­re­tary of State can claim that unde­sir­able com­ments fur­thers a for­eign adversary’s inter­est that could influ­ence a fed­er­al elec­tion. It for­bids social media plat­forms from pub­lish­ing any voice that dis­agrees with the rul­ing class. It also allows the Exec­u­tive Branch to dis­solve the First Amend­ment so long as it utters the mag­ic words, “nation­al secu­ri­ty.”  We’ve see what Democ­rats did with the Patri­ot Act, refo­cus­ing its intent from Islam­ic Jihadist to Con­sti­tu­tion­al, Chris­t­ian Amer­i­cans as the fear­ful main domes­tic ter­ror­ist threat the gov­ern­ment must guard us from.

There’s penal­ties asso­ci­at­ed with this law if its passed. “Any­one who vio­lates or mere­ly evades an order giv­en by the Sec­re­tary of Com­merce under the RESTRICT Act could go to prison for 20 years.” Giv­en Biden’s already unprece­dent­ed cen­sor­ship oper­a­tions, includ­ing try­ing to cre­ate a Dis­in­for­ma­tion Gov­er­nance Board with­in the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty, (right out of Orwell’s 1984), and his politi­ciza­tion of the fed­er­al police forces, being a part of a polit­i­cal­ly dis­fa­vored busi­ness under this law, would com­plete­ly end free enter­prise.  Clear­ly under Joe Biden, Amer­i­ca is becom­ing a police state. Laws like the Restrict Act, sim­ply tight­en the screws on true Amer­i­cans. Today, Sen­a­tors claim that those pow­ers “will only be used against for­eign threats.” Don’t you believe it because “pow­er cor­rupts and absolute pow­er cor­rupts absolute­ly” just like the sur­veil­lance pow­ers grant­ed to the gov­ern­ment after 9/11 has done to us. it won’t take long before the author­i­ty grant­ed by the RESTRICT Act’s are abused to tar­get Demo­c­rat polit­i­cal ene­mies, and that’s means us. Maybe we should lay-by some more ammo. Just wondering!

Remem­ber, free­dom is the goal, the Con­sti­tu­tion is the way. Now, go get ‘em (05May23)