American House Foreign Affairs Committee debates allowing the president to ban the Tik Tok APP.

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EDITED BY |TONY WILD
WORLD NEW S -CJ JOURNALIST
28 FEB.2023 - WASHINGTON

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The American House Foreign Affairs Committee will debate the proposal Tuesday afternoon to give president Jow Biden the decision to ban the Chinese application Tik Tok, following a separately scheduled hearing about combatting Chinese “aggression” in the tech and economic sector.

The proposed bill, the latest to hit Congress with the goal of banning TikTok, was introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) last week. It follows a Republican bicameral bill to ban TikTok introduced last month by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.).
President Joe Biden ordered CFIUS to review TikTok in June 2021, after he withdrew executive orders issued under former President Trump to ban downloads of the app in the U.S. Few details have emerged about the administration’s review in the time since.

A TikTok spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment in response to McCaul’s proposal.

McCaul’s proposal, the Deterring America’s Technological Adversaries Act, would adjust the Berman amendments, according to a GOP aide.

The amendments are a more than three decades old exception to the International Emergency Powers Act. That limits the president’s authority to regulate informational materials under the act and aims to promote the free exchange of ideas across nations.

McCaul’s bill seeks to clarify the exemption so that it does not apply to “sensitive personal data,” making software applications like TikTok, owned by Chinese-based ByteDance, potentially eligible to be banned.

News of the scheduled markup was first reported by Punchbowl News reporter John Bresnahan on Twitter.

“My bill empowers the administration to ban TikTok or any software applications that threaten U.S. national security. And make no mistake — TikTok is a security threat,” McCaul said in a statement. “Anyone with TikTok downloaded on their device has given the CCP a backdoor to all their personal information. It’s a spy balloon into your phone.”