US senators defend push to give Biden new tools to ban TikTok
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[April 07, 2023]
By David Shepardson
(Reuters) - Two U.S. senators proposing to give the Biden administration
new powers to ban Chinese-owned short video app TikTok on Thursday
rejected criticism arguing it is the best way to address security
concerns about a broad range of foreign-owned apps.
Senators Mark Warner, a Democrat and John Thune, a Republican, last
month proposed the Restrict Act that would grant the Commerce Department
new authority to review, block, and address a range of transactions
involving foreign information and communications technology that pose
national security risks.
"Our bill is designed to modernize the president’s international
economic authorities for the digital era, put significant guardrails on
presidential authority, give Congress the authority to overturn certain
decisions made by the president, and establish a risk-based process to
deal with foreign-adversary technology," Warner and Thune said in a Wall
Street Journal essay.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Apr/07/images/ads/current/remington_sda_SFARM_2023.png)
The White House and 26 senators support the Restrict Act that would
apply to foreign technologies from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran,
Venezuela and Cuba. Critics say the bill is overbroad and hurts civil
liberties of Americans including the more than 150 million U.S. TikTok
users.
The Republican House Financial Services Committee tweeted last week that
the Restrict Act would make the Commerce Department "a dictator over
trade, sanctions, investment, cryptocurrency, and more."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Apr/07/images/ads/current/charrons_bch_2022.png)
The senators denied targeting individual users or people using a virtual
private network to access TikTok.
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![](../images/040723PIX/news_m23.jpg)
TikTok logo is displayed on the
smartphone while standing on the U.S. flag in this illustration
picture taken, November 8, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Apr/07/images/ads/current/firstbaptist_lda_EASTER_2023.png)
"An intense, well-funded lobbying campaign from the Chinese company
has misrepresented our bill in bad faith," they wrote. "It isn’t
hard to figure out why: There’s money to be made by allowing TikTok
to continue its current operations in the U.S. and not much to be
made by protecting American citizens from national-security
threats."
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before Congress last month and
faced tough questions about national security concerns over the
ByteDance-owned app.
TikTok, which did not immediately comment Thursday, says it has
spent more than $1.5 billion on rigorous data security efforts and
rejects spying allegations.
Last week, Republican Senator Rand Paul blocked a bid to fast-track
a separate bill to ban TikTok introduced by Senator Josh Hawley, who
said the Restrict Act "doesn’t ban TikTok. It gives the president a
whole bunch of new authority."
The Biden administration has demanded TikTok's Chinese owners divest
their stakes or face a U.S. ban. Then President Donald Trump's
attempts in 2020 to ban TikTok were blocked by U.S. courts.
Democratic Representative Cori Bush said last week "Congress should
pass comprehensive data privacy legislation, rather than target one
company for industry-wide concerns."
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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