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Many people think that the division of government is the cause of the impasse, but we believe that it can actually offer opportunities to do great things bipartisanly. The reality is that Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans are working together on a wide range of issues. For our part, we are teaming up to address national security threats from foreign technology, and are working to codify the policies first implemented by the Trump administration and now backed by the Biden administration. Leading a bipartisan effort. This is not a sentence you see often in print these days.
In recent years, information and communication technology products from hostile countries have gained a foothold in the American market. Today, the threat everyone is talking about is his TikTok, which could enable surveillance by the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party or facilitate the spread of malicious influence campaigns in the United States. But before TikTok, it was Huawei and ZTE that threatened our telecommunications network. Before that, it was Russia’s Kaspersky Lab that threatened the security of government and corporate devices.
These risks will not go away. Without tools to address this problem holistically, the federal government is simply pumping water out of sunken ships.
Several federal agencies have attempted to take action, but much of their success has been limited to narrow confines of their respective jurisdictions. A comprehensive approach to assessing and mitigating the threats posed must be adopted.
DO NOT USE TIKOK.China-owned social networks may still have your data
So 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans in the U.S. Senate came together to create a law to limit the emergence of security threats that endanger information and communications technology, or the RESTRICT Act, because in Washington everything must be an acronym. proposed a law called
The RESTRICT Act requires the Secretary to review information and communications technology products from hostile nations such as China, Russia, and Iran, and if the products are determined to pose a risk to U.S. national security, the Secretary may Allows appropriate action to be taken. Among other things, this power allows the Secretary to ban products whose security risks are particularly salient, or companies like TikTok.
Moreover, in a world where Congress is constantly catching up on technology oversight, the bill will help mitigate future threats by covering many emerging technologies, including AI products and services, fintech, quantum communications, and e-commerce. We actually anticipate. Importantly, our framework also requires that the Secretary declassify sufficient information to educate the public about the identified threats. For too long, governments have told citizens to “just trust us” when it comes to these threats. We have to be more outspoken about the claimed risks when it comes to communications technologies that are out there.
Some argue that the law doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t explicitly call for a ban on TikTok. We have fully set up risk-based processes that can prohibit
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Explicitly designating foreign companies in the law, rather than using a broader risk-based process, means setting yourself up for failure. It raises important questions as to whether statutes stand up to judicial scrutiny. Especially since a federal court blocked the previous administration’s efforts to explicitly ban her from TikTok. He has also heard concerns from his leaders in various U.S. businesses that by law he singled out one company, which would invite foreign retaliation against U.S. companies and be completely counterproductive to U.S. interests. .
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Enter the RESTRICT method. Our law establishes a process to be notified by intelligence agencies that ensures that the Secretary of Commerce pays attention to agencies such as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Communications Commission, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Department of Defense. To do. A Unique Specialty – Identifying these emerging threats. This approach is truly risk-based, creating a rule-bound rather than ad-hoc process to prevent it from being copied by countries seeking to unfairly target U.S. companies under the guise of national security.
This issue is not confined to TikTok, we are working with a strong bipartisan coalition of senators to ensure that the RESTRICT Act establishes a comprehensive process rooted in objective information assessment and risk analysis to ensure that foreign technology from adversaries We believe that we will deal with all the threats posed. , not just responding to individual threats with an ugly head raised.
Democrat Mark Warner represents Virginia in the US Senate.
Click here to read more about SEN.John Tune