Six Republican senators, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, are calling on the Biden administration to provide a plan to combat any security risks posed by TikTok, the video-sharing, social media platform.
The letter was signed by Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Mike Braun of Indiana, Todd Young of Indiana, and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
"We write to inquire about the Biden Administration’s delayed response to the national security and privacy risks posed by TikTok, the video-sharing social media platform developed and owned by the Chinese company ByteDance Ltd.," the senators said.
The letter noted that TikTok "is nearing a deal with a U.S. company to 'store its U.S. users' information without its Chinese parent ByteDance having access to it, hoping to address U.S. regulatory concerns.' "
"President [Donald] Trump issued an additional Presidential Order on August 14, 2020 directing ByteDance to divest its American assets and destroy any data it acquired through TikTok," the letter continued.
"The order also blocked ByteDance’s acquisition of another video-sharing social media platform, Musical.ly. The August 14 order was based on 'credible evidence' that the acquisition threatened to 'impair the national security of the United States,' likely including evidence unearthed by a review of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
"The Biden Administration has seemingly done nothing to enforce the August 14 order nearly two years since its promulgation. The results of the security reviews, likewise, have not been publicly released after one year."
A June 17 Reuters report noted TikTok had completed migrating the U.S. users’ information to servers at Oracle Corp.
The move came nearly two years after a U.S. national security panel ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok because of fears that U.S. user data could be passed on to China's government.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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