Judge Andrew P. Napolitano: Can Congress Ban TikTok?

“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”
–First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

When James Madison set about to draft the Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution — he was articulating what lawyers and philosophers and judges call “negative rights.” A positive right grants a privilege, like a driver’s license. A negative right restrains the government from interfering with a preexisting right. In order to emphasize his view that the freedom of speech preexisted the government, Madison insisted that the word “the” precede “freedom of speech” in the First Amendment.

If the freedom of speech preceded the government, where did it come from?

Speech is a natural right; it comes from our humanity. The framers of the Constitution and the ratifiers of the Bill of Rights understood and recognized this. Congress doesn’t grant the freedom of speech; rather it is prohibited absolutely from interfering with it. In the years following the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the courts began applying the restrictions in the First Amendment to the states and their municipalities and subdivisions.

Today, the First Amendment bars all government — federal, state and local — and all branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — from interfering with the freedom of speech.

You’d never know this listening to Congress today. The same Congress that can’t balance a budget or count the number of foreign military bases the feds own, that thinks it can right any wrong and tax any event, that has borrowed over $34 trillion and not paid back any of it; the same Congress now wants to give the President of the United States — whomever might occupy that office — the lawful power to suppress websites he thinks are spying on their users or permitting foreign governments to influence what folks see on the sites. All this is an effort to ban the popular website for young folks called TikTok and force its owners to sell its assets.

Here is the backstory.

Throughout American history, we have suffered from mass fears. In the 1790s, it was fear of the French and of Native Americans. In the 1860s, it was fear of African Americans and fear of Confederates. In the 1900s, it was fear of anarchists, Nazis and Communists. In the first quarter of the present century, the government has whipped up fear of terrorists, Russians, Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin and now the Chinese.

In his dystopian novel, “1984,” George Orwell analyzed the totalitarian mind and recognized the need that totalitarians have for fear and hatred. They know that when folks are afraid, they will bargain away the reality of liberty for the illusion of safety. Without fear and hatred, totalitarians have fewer tools for control of the population.

What is the government’s problem with TikTok? The feds want to use fear and hatred of the Chinese government in order to regulate the sources of data and information that Americans can consult. They have projected upon the government of China the very same unlawful and unconstitutional assaults on natural rights that the feds themselves perpetrate upon us.

Thus, in order to gain control over the American public, the deep state — the parts of the government that do not change, no matter which political party is in power — and its friends in Congress have advanced the myth that the Chinese government, which commands the loyalty of the owners of TikTok, might use the site to pass along misinformation or to spy on its users. The key word here is “might,” as the intelligence officials who testified to Congress on this were unable to produce any solid evidence — just fear — that the Chinese government is doing this.

You can’t make this up.

Remember the bumper stickers from the 1970s: “Don’t steal. The government hates competition!” I thought of that line when analyzing this. Why? Because the federal government itself spies on every American who uses a computer or mobile device. The federal government itself captures every keystroke touched on every device in the U.S. The federal government itself captures all data transmitted into, out of and within the U.S. on fiber-optic cables. And the federal government itself told the Supreme Court earlier this week that it needs to be able to influence what data is available on websites in order to combat misinformation.

The federal government basically told the court that it — and not individual persons — should decide what we can read and from what sources. What the federal government did not reveal is its rapacious desire to control the free market in ideas.

Now back to the First Amendment.

The principal value underlying the freedom of speech is free will. We all have free will to think as we wish, to say what we think, to read what we want, to publish what we say. And we can do all this with perfect freedom. We don’t need a government permission slip. The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to guarantee this freedom by keeping the government out of the business of speech — totally and completely. This is the law of the land in modern Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Were this not the law, then the government could suppress the speech it hates and fears and support the speech of its patrons. And then the values that underly the First Amendment would be degraded and negated. The government has no moral or constitutional authority to spy on us or to influence our thoughts. Period.

Does the government work for us or do we work for the government? Have we consented to a nullification of free speech in deference to whomever might be living in the White House? Why do we repose the Constitution into the hands of those who subvert it?

To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

For more great content from Rights, Justice & Culture News.

Related Topics:#BillOfRights #CanCongressBanTikTok?#FirstAmendment #HeartlandDailyNews #JudgeAndrewPNapolitano #USConstitution

Up Next

The White House Makes Good on Its Antitrust Threats

Don't Miss

ECO Extremism under reported in Canada

Todayville

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Net zero’s cost-benefit ratio is crazy high

Media / 8 hours ago

CBC retracts false claims about residential schools after accusing Rebel News of ‘misinformation’

Business / 8 hours ago

‘Great Reset’ champion Klaus Schwab resigns from WEF

Bjorn Lomborg

Net zero’s cost-benefit ratio is crazy high

Published on April 22, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Bjørn Lomborg

The best academic estimates show that over the century, policies to achieve net zero would cost every person on Earth the equivalent of more than CAD $4,000 every year. Of course, most people in poor countries cannot afford anywhere near this. If the cost falls solely on the rich world, the price-tag adds up to almost $30,000 (CAD) per person, per year, over the century.

Canada has made a legal commitment to achieve “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. Back in 2015, then-Prime Minister Trudeau promised that climate action will “create jobs and economic growth” and the federal government insists it will create a “strong economy.” The truth is that the net zero policy generates vast costs and very little benefit—and Canada would be better off changing direction.

Achieving net zero carbon emissions is far more daunting than politicians have ever admitted. Canada is nowhere near on track. Annual Canadian CO₂ emissions have increased 20 per cent since 1990. In the time that Trudeau was prime minister, fossil fuel energy supply actually increased over 11 per cent. Similarly, the share of fossil fuels in Canada’s total energy supply (not just electricity) increased from 75 per cent in 2015 to 77 per cent in 2023.

Over the same period, the switch from coal to gas, and a tiny 0.4 percentage point increase in the energy from solar and wind, has reduced annual CO₂ emissions by less than three per cent. On that trend, getting to zero won’t take 25 years as the Liberal government promised, but more than 160 years. One study shows that the government’s current plan which won’t even reach net-zero will cost Canada a quarter of a million jobs, seven per cent lower GDP and wages on average $8,000 lower.

Globally, achieving net-zero will be even harder. Remember, Canada makes up about 1.5 per cent of global CO₂ emissions, and while Canada is already rich with plenty of energy, the world’s poor want much more energy.

In order to achieve global net-zero by 2050, by 2030 we would already need to achieve the equivalent of removing the combined emissions of China and the United States — every year. This is in the realm of science fiction.

The painful Covid lockdowns of 2020 only reduced global emissions by about six per cent. To achieve net zero, the UN points out that we would need to have doubled those reductions in 2021, tripled them in 2022, quadrupled them in 2023, and so on. This year they would need to be sextupled, and by 2030 increased 11-fold. So far, the world hasn’t even managed to start reducing global carbon emissions, which last year hit a new record.

Data from both the International Energy Agency and the US Energy Information Administration give added cause for skepticism. Both organizations foresee the world getting more energy from renewables: an increase from today’s 16 per cent to between one-quarter to one-third of all primary energy by 2050. But that is far from a transition. On an optimistically linear trend, this means we’re a century or two away from achieving 100 percent renewables.

Politicians like to blithely suggest the shift away from fossil fuels isn’t unprecedented, because in the past we transitioned from wood to coal, from coal to oil, and from oil to gas. The truth is, humanity hasn’t made a real energy transition even once. Coal didn’t replace wood but mostly added to global energy, just like oil and gas have added further additional energy. As in the past, solar and wind are now mostly adding to our global energy output, rather than replacing fossil fuels.

Indeed, it’s worth remembering that even after two centuries, humanity’s transition away from wood is not over. More than two billion mostly poor people still depend on wood for cooking and heating, and it still provides about 5 per cent of global energy.

Like Canada, the world remains fossil fuel-based, as it delivers more than four-fifths of energy. Over the last half century, our dependence has declined only slightly from 87 per cent to 82 per cent, but in absolute terms we have increased our fossil fuel use by more than 150 per cent. On the trajectory since 1971, we will reach zero fossil fuel use some nine centuries from now, and even the fastest period of recent decline from 2014 would see us taking over three centuries.

Global warming will create more problems than benefits, so achieving net-zero would see real benefits. Over the century, the average person would experience benefits worth $700 (CAD) each year.

But net zero policies will be much more expensive. The best academic estimates show that over the century, policies to achieve net zero would cost every person on Earth the equivalent of more than CAD $4,000 every year. Of course, most people in poor countries cannot afford anywhere near this. If the cost falls solely on the rich world, the price-tag adds up to almost $30,000 (CAD) per person, per year, over the century.

Every year over the 21st century, costs would vastly outweigh benefits, and global costs would exceed benefits by over CAD 32 trillion each year.

We would see much higher transport costs, higher electricity costs, higher heating and cooling costs and — as businesses would also have to pay for all this — drastic increases in the price of food and all other necessities. Just one example: net-zero targets would likely increase gas costs some two-to-four times even by 2030, costing consumers up to $US52.6 trillion. All that makes it a policy that just doesn’t make sense—for Canada and for the world.

Bjørn Lomborg

2025 Federal Election

BREAKING: THE FEDERAL BRIEF THAT SHOULD SINK CARNEY

Published on April 22, 2025

Todayville

Trish Wood is Critical

Report from Prime Minister’s own Pricy Council shows a terrifying image of Canada’s future under current trajectory

All hell is breaking out over a Privy Council report, compiled for the Liberal government, dated January 2025. It paints this country’s future as a bleak, modern version of Lord of the Flies. The story erupted when Joe Warmington asked Pierre Poilievre a question so shocking it sounded like a dystopian film script. I’ve found the original document and have posted it below, along with The Western Standard’s take but first here is the historic exchange.

The report outlines a grim future where affluent Canadians wall themselves off in gated communities to escape economic, political, and social unrest, while those left behind turn to survival tactics outside the law. Western Standard

Here is the full document

Below are some highlights from the Policy Horizons Canada research paper. The report was quietly released on Policy Horizon’s website and was reported by Blacklocks’ but ignored by legacy media. I suspect this is the report the RCMP was referring to when it warned of civil war in this country based on new research predicting economic hard times.

Here are some highlights I’ve pulled:

2.3 Intergenerational wealth

In 2040, people see inheritance as the only reliable way to get ahead. Society increasingly resembles an aristocracy. Wealth and status pass down the generations. Family background – especially owning property – divides the ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots’.

2.4 Social siloing

In 2040, people rarely mix with others of different socio-economic status. Algorithmic dating apps filter by class. Gated metaverses, like real life, offer few opportunities to meet people from different backgrounds. It is hard to move up in the world by making social connections that could lead to long term romantic relationships, job opportunities, or business partnerships. Social relations no longer offer pathways to connections or opportunities that enable upward mobility.

2.5 Aspirations and expectations

In 2040, aspirations for social mobility among youth are at odds with expectations of immobility. Advertising and marketing discourses continue to drive the desire to climb the social ladder, but economic realities leave most with limited expectations of success. Cognitive dissonance between what youth are programed to want and what they know they can expect, leads many to frustration and apathy. Only a few maintain a strong drive to innovate and succeed in traditional terms

3.6 People may reject systems they believe have failed them

People who work hard but see little reward may look for others to blame
Some may blame AI, Big Tech, CEOs, social media, unions, or capitalism. They could demand tighter regulations, tax penalties, or profound revisions of certain systems
Some may blame the state. They may attack policies believed to favour older cohorts, who benefited from the era of social mobility. In extreme cases, people could reject the state’s legitimacy, leading to higher rates of tax evasion or other forms of civil disobedience
Some may choose to blame those with capital, whether it is social, economic, or decision-making capital
Others may choose to blame immigrants, or another identifiable group. If such scapegoating becomes widespread, it could generate serious social or political conflicts
4.0 Conclusion
Declining social mobility could create serious challenges for citizens and policymakers. What people believe matters as much as the reality. It is often the basis for decisions and actions. Currently, most Canadians still believe that they have equality of opportunity^Footnote6. This may change.

People may lose faith in the Canadian project. They may reject policies that promote education, jobs, or home ownership. The usual levers may seem misguided and wasteful to those who have abandoned the idea of ‘moving up’. They could lose the drive to better themselves and their communities. Others might embrace radical ideas about restructuring the state, society, and the economy.
3.4 People might find alternative ways to meet their basic needs
- Housing, food, childcare, and healthcare co-operatives may become more common. This could ease burdens on social services but also challenge market-based businesses
- Forms of person-to-person exchange of goods and services could become even more popular, reducing tax revenues and consumer safety
- People may start to hunt, fish, and forage on public lands and waterways without reference to regulations. Small-scale agriculture could increase
- Governments may come to seem irrelevant if they cannot enforce basic regulations or if people increasingly rely on grass-roots solutions to meeting basic needs

This is what The Western Standard is reporting.

Here is the entire article.

A federal think tank is warning that Canada could face a dramatic social and economic breakdown within 15 years, including mass emigration by wage earners, a surge in mental health crises, and widespread illegal hunting for food among the poor.

Blacklock’s Reporter says the stark prediction comes from a Foresight Brief quietly released by Policy Horizons Canada, a division of the Privy Council Office.

Dated January 2025 and titled Future Lives: Social Mobility In Question, the report paints a picture of a deeply divided Canada by 2040 — where few believe they or their children can build a better life.

“Many people in Canada assume ‘following the rules’ and ‘doing the right thing’ will lead to a better life,” the report states. “However, things are changing. Wealth inequality is rising. It is already common for children to be less upwardly mobile than their parents.”

Analysts suggest that growing inequality will erode hope and trust in institutions, driving many to leave the country altogether.

“Canada may become a less attractive destination for migrants,” it says, warning that even new Canadians could seek better opportunities elsewhere if the country is seen as stagnant or regressive.

The report outlines a grim future where affluent Canadians wall themselves off in gated communities to escape economic, political, and social unrest, while those left behind turn to survival tactics outside the law.

“People may start to hunt, fish and forage on public lands and waterways without reference to regulations,” it notes. “Governments may come to seem irrelevant.”

Access to postsecondary education is projected to become a luxury only the wealthy can afford, while homeownership for first-time buyers will depend almost entirely on family wealth. Inheritance, the report says, may become “the only reliable way to get ahead.”

Mental health outcomes are expected to worsen dramatically, driven by a deep sense of frustration and hopelessness.

“Frustration could leave many people deeply unhappy with negative consequences for their family and loved ones,” analysts wrote.

The report does not disclose who ordered the research or for what purpose, though all contributing authors are federal employees. Policy Horizons Canada emphasizes the scenario is not a forecast but a plausible outcome if current trends continue unchecked.

Understand that Prime Minister Mark Carney would not only have known about this report but is partly responsible for the economic conditions that could lead to these feudalistic outcomes.

Stay critical.

#anytribebutLiberal