Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Appplications Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7521, the Protecting American from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
This legislation was passed out of the Energy & Commerce Committee with a remarkable vote of bipartisanship, unanimously supported 50 to 0, because our nation is facing a clear, emerging threat from foreign adversaries who have alarming access to Americans' data. Their control of communications applications gives them the ability to push disinformation and propaganda campaigns literally into the hands of 100 million Americans, including tens of millions of children.
When you download an app, you should ask yourself: Who gains access to my information? How are they tracking it? How is it being used? Does a foreign government have access to it?
With regard to TikTok, some answers are clear: TikTok is a company based in China that is regulated by its Communist government. TikTok is tracking users' location information, online activity, and interactions. It is not clear the full extent to which users' data is being used. Just last week, users were targeted and tracked, and received difficult-to-dismiss pop-up alerts. They were tracked based on their geo-location information, and pushed to call their Member of Congress, sharing a misleading message calling H.R. 7521 `the TikTok ban'.
This incident alone raises concerns about the security and safety of the American public's personal information and how it is being used. The public deserves to know about the risks to their privacy when using TikTok.
I support H.R. 7521's provision requiring parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok within six months to continue operating. This bill would also give the President the authority to protect Americans from future threats from foreign adversaries--namely, China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia--by requiring that communications applications are divested from their control if they pose significant threats to our national security.
I urge my colleagues to support these protections for our national security and the integrity of our democracy.
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