On February 27, Reuters reports, the White House gave federal agencies a 30-day deadline to ensure that all government-owned devices are  TikTok-free.

The supposed, but seemingly evidenceless, reason: Because a Chinese company owns TikTok — a smart phone app for creating and sharing short videos — the Chinese government may be using  it to spy on Americans.

Well, OK. Ban TikTok from government devices.

But does that really go far enough?

Is TikTok the only app that gathers personal information and might be used by a government, any government, to spy on its users? Not even close.

If you don’t think the US government has been spying on you, using data generated by your phone, you haven’t been paying attention for at least the last decade.  In May 2013, now-exiled American hero Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the frightful extent of Washington’s domestic espionage operations.

If the goal is to protect the government, and the government alone, it’s appropriate to not just ban TikTok from government devices, but to ban government use of devices that could conceivably run TikTok or similar apps (including apps that install and run without the users’ knowledge).

No smart phones.

No Internet-connected computers.

No flash drives or cloud — data storage must be restricted to tightly-controlled media. Perhaps a version of the old 5 1/4″ floppy disk, with a security device embedded that goes off if someone attempts to leave a secure area with it.

Perhaps government should be limited to pen and paper, with everything encrypted using one-time pads generated by an army of monkeys rolling dice.

Hey, sounds good to me. Government does far too much, and all this modern technology facilitates its reach into areas of our lives where it has no business. So in addition to thwarting espionage, such a ban would benefit the rest of us, too.

But, regarding the rest of us:

US House Resolution 1153, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, would ban TikTok entirely. Not just for the US government, but for all Americans.

If you passed junior high school civics, you almost certainly know that the First Amendment to the US Constitution forbids Congress to make any law “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

TikTok is indisputably analogous to the printing press: It’s just a tool that lets you publish video. HR 1153 is, therefore, indisputably unconstitutional, not to mention stupid, insane, and evil.

If you fear the possibility of the Chinese Communist Party spying on you via TikTok, and don’t like that idea, remove TikTok from your phone (or don’t install it in the first place). “Problem” solved.

Or, one problem solved anyway. There’s still the problem of a technologically over-equipped US government trying to run all our lives.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Seldom a day goes by without some new controversy on, or about, Twitter. Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform worked like a mainline injection of methamphetamine to boost that effect. Consider a February 15 announcement which, even a year ago, would likely have struck most people as boring and technical:

“[S]tarting today, we will no longer allow accounts to enroll in the text message/SMS method of 2FA unless they are Twitter Blue subscribers. … We encourage non-Twitter Blue subscribers to consider using an authentication app or security key method instead.”

And, just like that, Twitter users began grabbing for paper bags to hyperventilate into and calling their doctors for panic attack medication prescriptions. Selected tweets:

“Two factor authentication should not be gatekept for people who pay.”

“This is like a landlord charging extra for locks on apartment doors.”

“[R]emoving two factor authentication and making ppl PAY FOR IT?? when it should be offered no matter what (and is on most websites) is beyond messed up.”

Clue#1: Twitter did not remove Two-Factor Authentication.

Clue #2: Twitter is not requiring anyone to pay for Two-Factor Authentication.

You can still use Two-Factor Authentication on Twitter.

You can still use Two-Factor Authentication on Twitter without paying Elon Musk for a Twitter Blue subscription (and, depending on the method you choose, without paying anyone anything).

What you can’t do is use a particular method of Two-Factor Authentication — a method that was, according to Wired magazine as of last November, already “melting down” — on Twitter unless you’re a Twitter Blue subscriber.

You can download a free authentication app for your phone, or you can use a “hardware key” that’s cheap (mine cost less than $20), convenient (plug it into your computer, press the little flashing button on it, and you’re good to go), and works across many sites/platforms (I use mine on, among other sites, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Dropbox, and Microsoft).

Why the change?

To boost Twitter Blue subscriptions? Well, maybe.

Or maybe because, as Musk says, “Twitter is getting scammed by phone companies for $60M/year of fake 2FA SMS messages.”

You probably have an “unlimited voice and text” account for your phone. Twitter doesn’t. It pays for what it uses, and it uses a lot. Some of that money goes to phone company scammers who have bots send bazillions of fake SMS authentication requests and rake in the text messaging fees.

Saving $60 million a year is good for Twitter, whether it increases new revenue from Twitter Blue subscriptions or not.

The added security of using an app or physical key instead of trusting a more vulnerable authentication method is good for you.

And those predisposed to cry over nothingburgers get a new one to cry about.

Everybody wins!

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

For the “privilege” of using medical marijuana without being arrested, about one of every 25 Floridians pays the state government $75 per year for a special identification card, and up to another $200 for periodic visits to a small sub-set of authorized doctors who can prescribe the common plant for a limited number of ailments.

Put a different way, just getting permission to use a common plant for medical purposes is a quarter-billion-dollar per year industry in the Sunshine State.

That’s before a single patient buys so much as a gram of legal cannabis. The legal sale of the actual stuff, of course, is also a growth industry (pun intended) — especially for the state government, which knocks down another $125 million or so per year in sales taxes and dispensary licensing fees.

Why are Floridians spending so much money begging for permission to use a ubiquitous plant that’s been medicine for millennia, has well-established medical uses, and is apparently just plain fun for some?

Because every time we try to put full legalization on the ballot so we can be as free 20 other states, the District of Columbia, and Guam, the measures get jammed up in court and Floridians are denied the right to vote on them.

The latest such measure is in court right now. If our judicial masters deign to allow it on the ballot, we’ll get to pass it in 2024.

We shouldn’t have to wait that long.

We shouldn’t have had to wait at all.

Criminalization of marijuana has always been a scam.

It started as a way of keeping federal agents employed after alcohol prohibition ended, and as a way of thwarting industrial hemp’s competition with wood-pulp paper and various textiles. And as it finishes, all we really ever got out of it were millions of arrests, lives and careers ruined, and corrupted law enforcement.

It was never a good idea, and a poll by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab says 75% of Floridians want it to end.

Not two years from now, maybe. Now.

And really, there’s no need to wait.

The state’s next legislative session kicks off on March 7.

There’s no reason — at least no GOOD reason — why a majority of state representatives and state senators couldn’t put a bill fully legalizing marijuana and doing away with “permit” schemes on governor Ron DeSantis’s desk for signature by the end of March.

Make it happen, Tallahassee.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY