Claim: The Restrict Bill is The Patriot Act 2.0

Question

Comments from Reddit users on a post about the Restrict Bill claim that the Restrict Bill is just another Patriot Act. They seem to be referencing the act allowing the U.S. government to violate the privacy of American citizens without probable cause. The Restrict Bill allows the government to violate the privacy of American citizens in a different way according to some users.

Answer 1

There is not enough information to support this claim.

The Restrict Act is a piece of legislation that has arose as part of pushes to ban TikTok from the U.S. The act gives broad regulatory power to the US Secretary of Commerce for tech produced in countries like China and Iran which are adversaries of the US. This is covered in an article from Newsweek.

The post on reddit highlights section 3a of the legislation which gives the Secretary of Commerce powers on any covered transaction that is a risk to national security. The Ethereum subreddit was particularly concerned about this because it could effect transactions on the Ethereum blockchain which are not controlled by any government or central entity.

The section on transactions is not enough evidence to support the claim that the Restrict Bill is another Patriot Act. Furthermore there has not been enough reporting on the bill to determine whether this would allow the US government to violate privacy without probable cause.

Comments

There are several media outlets reporting on this, and what I understand is that this targets the application or social media platform, more than individual users.