They desperately need to do something about car software before China starts being really relevant here in EVs too.

I absolutely support massively restricting what anyone can gather, not just China, (and the same for social media/ad networks/retailers), but it's fundamentally not the same threat as data vacuums controlled by an enemy state.

pretty sure china can just buy all the info they want from facebook, twitter. If I recall a bunch of US secret military sites were exposed by apple watches

Extremely well said, thank you.

The fears, however reasonable you may find them, are largely that it presents a danger of foreign information gathering of detailed behavioral/location/interest/social network information on a huge swath of the U.S. population which can be used either for intelligence purposes or targeted influence/psyops campaigns within the U.S.

Tbh, I'm troubled by my own government doing that to us.