Certainly.
If a local health department issues a closure order for a restaurant in your neighborhood due to repeated health code violations, then that government agency (local in this case) is using powers granted to it under the law to
restrict activities of a business in your county. The restriction is likely temporary, but the business is obligated to supply a remedy. The local government is acting upon it's duty and acting within powers that are vested with it in county ordinances. The action is taken against a business. It may be true that regular customers, including you, are indirectly impacted by this, because you eat dinner there each Friday night, but the government agency (county health board) has not taken any action to
force you to do anything. You may be unhappy about the action, but the action isn't directed at you. You could probably go look up the county health ordinances to see the exact law they are acting within.
In the case in the news today, it is the Commerce Department, a Federal Government agency, carrying out the powers granted to it in the law to
restrict certain business activities of a company (not you) within the United States. The restriction is being placed on
TikTok, and on
WeChat. The fact that the downloads are being restricted is just the same as your attempt to enter the closed restaurant is met with a locked door and health notice at the front of the restaurant.
The Commerce Department is acting within the following laws to perform this action: 50 USC 1701 and 50 USC 1601, as well as Section 301 of Title 3 under the United States Code. The first two laws are laws passed by Congress addressing national security, and the 3rd is a law that grants the President of the U.S. the power to
authorize to designate and empower the head of any department or agency in the executive branch any function which is vested in the President by law. Basically, the power to designate Presidential power granted in USC 1701 and 1601 to the Commerce Department.
So today's action is carried out as a
restriction against business activities of TikTok and WeChat in the United States. No action is being taken to force you, or any other mobile device user to do anything, but just as in the restaurant example, you may be indirectly impacted, and you may also be unhappy, but no unlawful action has been taken against you.
You also have not had any rights violated, as you have no legally protected right to dowload the TikTok app specifically, just as you had no legally protected right to eat at the restaurant that the local health department shut down.
By contrast, there is nowhere in the constitution that grants the President powers to do what JAA had suggested above:
- Force all Americans to wear masks during a global pandemic
- Force all Americans who have been in-contact with known COVID patients to get tested
- Force all Americans to have health insurance
If the President attempted to do any of those things via a Federal mandate, it is certain that the Federal Government would be sued quickly, as these are not executive branch powers, and are not even powers vested in the Federal Government. Indeed, the third thing on the list is what President Obama wanted to achieve with Obamacare, but lacking any power granted him under the law, he instead settled for merely to incenting this behavior through use of the federal tax code. Citizens who don't have health insurance sufficient to meet the minimum essential coverage requirements as spelled out in the ACA are subject to punitive taxes, but they aren't
forced to do anything.
That is the difference.
![[scooter]](/data/avatars/m/22/22287.jpg?1659477690){kind=avatar}
Raise money for Trump and he will steal a company from another country and give it to you. I bet this really upsets all of the people that love to scream SOCIALISM!!! because they don't believe all Americans should get medical care, food and shelter. Same case with the airline execs asking for a 8 billion dollar handout yesterday. 
