House panel votes to advance bill empowering Biden to ban TikTok

Washington CNN — A powerful House committee voted to advance legislation on Wednesday that would make it easier to ban TikTok from the United States and crack down on other China-related economic activity, amid vocal objections from some lawmakers and civil liberties advocates who argue the proposal is unconstitutionally broad and threatens a wide range of online speech. The bill’s text specifically names TikTok and its parent, ByteDance, and requires President Joe Biden to impose penalties against the companies, up to and potentially including a ban, if the administration determines they may have knowingly transferred TikTok’s user data to “any foreign person” working for or under the influence of the Chinese government. “TikTok is a modern-day Trojan horse of the used to surveil and exploit Americans’ personal information… in other words, it’s a spy balloon in your phone.” Missouri Republican Rep. Ann Wagner called TikTok “an urgent, urgent issue of supreme national security risk,” adding: “There is clear and present danger; the timing and the urgency are necessary.” But Democrats pushed back, saying the public had had just days to consider the bill before McCaul brought the legislation to a vote. “This legislation would damage our allegiances across the globe, bring more countries into China’s sphere, destroy jobs here in the United States and undercut core American values of free speech and free enterprise,” Meeks said. Under the bill, the US government could seek to impose similar penalties and restrictions on any US citizen who “may transfer sensitive personal data” to “any foreign person” who is “subject to the jurisdiction” or “is otherwise subject to the influence of China.” But terms such as “may be facilitating” or “subject to the influence of China” could be broadly interpreted to encompass a wide range of innocuous economic activity, and could expose Americans to enormous legal risk, the ACLU wrote in a letter to McCaul and the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Gregory Meeks.