Sens. Thune, Warner Push Bill to Combat TikTok Threat

Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Mark Warner, D-Va., say their new bill is the best way to counter TikTok’s threat to national security.

The two made their comments in a column posted by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

“We recently introduced bipartisan legislation in the Senate that has the best chance of mitigating TikTok’s clear national-security threat to the U.S.,” they said. “Where other bills have obvious constitutional problems and are likely to be struck down in the courts, the Restrict Act crafts a holistic, rules-based process that is narrowly tailored to foreign-adversary companies and is more likely to withstand judicial scrutiny.

“When President [Donald] Trump tried to ban TikTok by executive order in 2020, his efforts were ultimately struck down in court. The courts ruled that Mr. Trump didn’t have the legal authority to use an executive order based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in the service of national security. That 1977 law was written before Congress could imagine the internet or the global digital landscape of the 21st century.

“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.”

The two senators said that in the days following TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony in front of a congressional committee, their bill has been “misrepresented” in bad faith by a well-funded lobbying campaign by the Chinese company.

“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,” they said.

The two senators noted their bill doesn’t go after individual users or target any individual user of a virtual private network.

They said the bill targets foreign companies that operate in China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela. And they pointed out the four most downloaded apps in the U.S. last month were all owned by Chinese companies.

“We are failing to meet the security challenges of yesterday, and we are falling behind the security threats of tomorrow,” they said.

“Our nation needs the ability to combat foreign-adversary technology threats. That process isn’t in place, and codifying President Trump’s executive order—supported by President Biden—is a great place to start.”