Further Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2023
Floor Speech
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Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, last night, the Senate took the important step of unanimously, on a bipartisan basis, passing legislation to ban TikTok on all Government devices.
Now, this has been a longtime coming. I first introduced this piece of legislation almost 3 years ago. But last night's legislation is vitally important because never has the security threat to the American people from the Chinese Communist Party been more grave and never has the determination on the part of the Chinese Communist Party to leverage every possible asset, every possible platform to gather information--personal information--from the American people been more serious than it is now. That is why last night's action by this body is so critical.
Let's talk about TikTok for a moment, the most downloaded app in the world for the last 2 and 3 years running. Back in 2020, over 100 million Americans--100 million--used TikTok, and that was over 2 years ago. Since 2022, TikTok's average monthly users--and this year, every quarter of this year--has increased by 234 percent. It is incredible growth. You can see why. It is a fun app to use.
Here is what Americans don't know because TikTok doesn't want them to know. It is that the app runs continuously in the background of your phone or device. It collects your keystrokes. It has access to your email, access to your calendars, access to the notes and clipboard functions of your computer or iPhone or tablet or device. It, of course, tracks your geolocation. It is essentially an evidence- gathering, data-gathering machine that runs on your phone.
Can you turn it off? Can you stop it from doing these things? No, you can't, not if you want to use the app.
What is the connection to Beijing? Only this: that TikTok is owned by ByteDance. Under Chinese law that company must--must--provide all data to the Chinese Communist Party that the party wants upon its request.
We know that there are Chinese Communist Party members in TikTok leadership. We know that the Chinese Communist Party has held so-called training sessions for ByteDance and TikTok employees. We know that this data--Americans' data--is available to the Chinese Communist Party, to Beijing, because of TikTok, and it is time we did something to protect American users.
We have been warned repeatedly by our own intelligence Agencies that TikTok is a security threat. Heck, the Director of the FBI has testified under oath that TikTok poses major security risks. That is why the Pentagon, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, TSA, the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, and the Marine Corps have already banned the use of TikTok on Government devices. The only sensible next step is for this Congress to act to make that ban across the board for all Federal devices.
Now TikTok has tried to get in on the act. They issued a statement this morning admitting that there may be national security concerns with their platform, after denying it under oath for years on end to Congress. But they also begged Congress not to do anything rash like actually take action. They said: No, no, no, no. Wait, wait. Negotiate with us.
Well, I just say this: The time to wait to secure the privacy of American citizens is long past, and the least we can do, the very first step we can take, is to ban this app and its use on Federal Government devices.
I hope that now the House and the Senate will act together to move this legislation quickly to the President's desk and we can take the further historic step of seeing this legislation enacted into law, protecting the privacy and the security of every single American.
It is within our reach. Let's act now and get it done.
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