Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on March 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, 4 months ago, the U.S. Senate, and then the U.S. House, came together to ban the app TikTok on all Federal Government devices--on tablets, on phones, on computers--on Federal contractors and their devices as well.

We acted, just a few months ago, with a sense of urgency because we decided that TikTok was a national security threat. A privacy threat? Yes. A data threat? Yes. But above all, a national security threat. And we were right to act just those few months ago.

And now we must take the next step: to ban TikTok nationwide, to protect the security of every single American whose personal lives, whose personal data, whose personal security is in danger from the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. And it is time to act now because we have seen, just in the last week, the TikTok CEO come before the U.S. Congress and confirm that the reasons we acted 4 months ago were right and valid and that the need at this hour is urgent.

In this last week, we learned--I should say we confirmed from the testimony of the TikTok CEO that TikTok has the ability to track Americans' data, to track Americans' location, to track Americans' personal lives--whether they want it to or not.

What am I talking about? Well, TikTok tracks your keystrokes. Now, think about this for a second. It is not just the videos you may upload if you have the app on your phone. It is not just the videos that you watch. It is the keystrokes that you enter--and not just while you are on the app. Oh, no. It tracks your keystrokes all the time--while you are texting, what you are emailing. It tracks your contact list. It reads your phone list.

We believe, based on independent third-party analysis, that it can get into email. And it does this whether or not the user consents. In fact, there is no way to turn it off. Americans are subject to this ongoing data collection--at all hours of the day and night--even if they have got TikTok turned off on their phone.

What else have we learned? Well, that TikTok is monitoring the location of Americans. It is not just your keystrokes. It is your location data. Where are you right now? What is it that you are doing? Where are you moving to? Are you in a car? Are you in a building? On what floor are you on? TikTok can use the settings of your phone to track exactly where Americans are.

And we know that they have been doing this--TikTok has been gathering this data--not just on American citizens but also on American journalists. We know that they are able to see what journalists are saying, to see where journalists are going.

New whistleblower revelations have shown that TikTok has spied on particular American journalists and tried to track them, tried to learn what they are writing, tried to control, in essence, or at least get an understanding of what their message might be.

Think about this. An app on your phone that tracks your keystrokes, that reads your personal information, that tracks journalists around, that tracks your location--you can't do anything about it. And we haven't even gotten to the worst part.

The worst part is all of this information is accessible to engineers based in China, accessible to the Chinese Communist Party.

When he was asked about this last week, the CEO of TikTok didn't deny this espionage. No, what he said instead is, well, ``I don't think spying is the right way to describe it.''

Maybe he preferred the word ``surveillance.'' Maybe he preferred the word ``monitoring.'' Maybe he preferred the word ``tracking.'' But I actually think ``spying'' just about captures it.

The problem with TikTok is not the videos on the app. The problem with TikTok is, it is a backdoor for the Chinese Communist Party into the personal lives and information into the most intimate details of every American's life.

And we know the link between TikTok and the Chinese Communist Party is real, and we know that it is strong. TikTok is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese parent company ByteDance. We know that ByteDance has Chinese Communist Party members in its senior leadership. In fact, ByteDance's editor in chief is a Communist Party secretary. We know the Communist Party has done trainings for TikTok and ByteDance personnel. We have video of it being done in Beijing, in China.

Whistleblowers have come forward to my office, and to others, and given us evidence that China-based engineers are able to access Americans' personal data at any time that they want. Again, the CEO did not deny that last week. No.

The links to the Chinese Communist Party are real, and they are inscribed in Chinese law. This isn't just a matter of what TikTok may want to do. No. TikTok is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese parent company and is subject to Chinese law, which both the 2014 espionage law in that country and their 2017 national security law, which required--required--the company to turn over data that the Chinese Communist Party, that Beijing, may request. Under those laws, they must make Americans' data available--must make it available--to Chinese communist officials.

This is in addition to the CCP members who are actually senior officials in these companies, who work in these companies, who have access to Americans' data as I stand here and speak to you today.

The intent of China in all of this is quite clear. They want to build a profile on every single American. We know that many of the recent data hacks of credit agencies, of other digital repositories of Americans' personal information have been carried out by communist China. They are hungry for information about the American people. They are gathering it on everybody that they can, as much as they can--just like they do to their own citizens. And they are using the app TikTok to do it.

Of course, that is not the only way that the Chinese Communist Party has tried to gather information on Americans. This is certainly not the only time that they have done it. Think about the Confucius Institutes all across the country that the CCP funded on America's college campuses. Think about the researchers they funded and tried to place into key programs, key institutes and universities all across the country. Heaven's sake, think about the Chinese spy balloon that just went over this country, right over my home State of Missouri, just a few weeks ago, photographing everything that they could.

Now, this is a pattern. The difference is, in those cases, we addressed it. We shut down the Confucius Institutes. Those who have lied about their money that they have gotten from China, the funding that they have gotten, have in some cases been prosecuted for attempted espionage on America's college campuses, and the spy balloon was belatedly shot down--but shot down, at least.

Now, we have taken action in these other instances to protect Americans to stop the efforts of the CCP to spy on America, to collect Americans' data, to put Americans at risk. And now we must do the same thing with TikTok.

This is why President Trump and the previous administration tried to ban it. Let's not forget this isn't the beginning of this debate. This is the end of it. We have been at this for years now.

Years ago, the last administration tried to ban TikTok for all of these same national security reasons that led us as a Congress to ban it on Federal devices.

This has been a long time coming. There is no rush to judgment here. This is what administration after administration has concluded; that it is time to take action.

Here is the real truth that if it were the Confucius Institutes, the Chinese spy balloon, if it were some American company that was coordinating with a foreign ally, we would shut it down immediately. And we have done it in these other cases. But with TikTok, now TikTok says: Oh, no, no, no, no. You can't do that to us. You can't hold us accountable. We have a special carve-out. No, we have the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects us.

Well, I must have missed the class in law school where we covered the First Amendment right to spy. The last time I checked my Constitution, there was no such protection. And I can be darn sure that there is no special First Amendment carve-out for communists.

Now, the First Amendment may protect dance videos, sure; upload those all you want. But the First Amendment does not protect the right to spy on American citizens. It does not protect espionage. It does not protect what the Chinese Communist Party is trying to do in harvesting the data of millions of Americans.

Now, TikTok has no special First Amendment carve-out. They don't get special privileges that no other entity or an American company would get. They are subject to the same rules. And when you try to spy on American citizens, when you try to use Americans' own phones as portals for collection, that ought to be stopped. You ought to be banned.

And the fact that they are a China-based company shouldn't help them or hurt them. The fact is, their ties to Beijing, their ties to the CCP, their ongoing efforts at espionage, and their ongoing lies, by the way, to this body--this is a company that has come before this body and lied time and time again. They said that they weren't controlled by ByteDance. Now we know they are. They said that China's China-based engineers couldn't access American user data. Now we know they can.

They said that the CCP had no influence. And yet last week, the CEO of TikTok couldn't even confirm that the CCP hadn't helped write his talking points. Now, this is an entity--this is a corporate interest-- that is influenced, if not, controlled, by the Chinese Communist Party.

The national security risks are severe and growing worse. And I haven't even talked about--I haven't even talked about--the materials on suicide promotion that you will find on TikTok. I haven't talked about the risks to mental health that it may pose.

And there is a reason that TikTok isn't even available in China. Did you know that? In China, TikTok isn't available. Why is that? Well, it is because Beijing isn't stupid. They know it is ``digital'' fentanyl.

TikTok wasn't designed to make our lives better. TikTok is designed to addict and then to be used as a gateway into our personal lives. It is designed to addict and then to be used as a portal to spy on American citizens.

Now, I tell you what, here is one thing that has changed since just December, a few months ago, when we banned TikTok on Federal Government devices. TikTok has gone into full damage control mode. And as Big Tech companies do all the time, they hired a fleet of lobbyists and have spent untold amounts of cash. I am told that even today TikTok lobbyists have been seen here in the building. I have no doubt that they are scurrying around right now. Maybe they are in the Gallery.

I just say this: We have the opportunity today to send a message to this corporate interest that the U.S. Senate is not for sale; that we cannot be bought; that we cannot be purchased; that we cannot be influenced by their lobbying campaign, by their corporate money; that we will instead side with the American people. We will tell the truth about what this app is. We will do our jobs and protect Americans.

Now, some say that we ought to have a broader bill that would not actually ban TikTok but would give new authority to the executive branch and leave it open. I don't agree with that. My view is, we should act decisively to ban TikTok directly. We shouldn't give new, open-ended authority to Federal bureaucrats; we should target this threat specifically. That is what this bill does that we have before us today. It goes right at the problem. It bans TikTok in this country. It protects the American people, and it sends the message to communist China that you cannot buy us.

85 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. HAWLEY. Would the Senator from Kentucky entertain a question?

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Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, I have never before heard on this floor a defense of the right to spy. I didn't realize that the First Amendment contained a right to espionage.

The Senator from Kentucky mentions the Bill of Rights. I must have missed the right of the Chinese Government to spy on Americans in our Bill of Rights, because that is what we are talking about here.

The Senator from Kentucky can watch as many dance videos as he wants. He can watch them on this floor for all I care. Fine.

The Senator says that Americans can simply not use this app, just turn it off. That is not the case. If you turn it off, it continues to collect information. You don't need to consent. TikTok doesn't ask you do you want to share your information; it takes it. It doesn't ask you for permission to track your location; it takes it. It doesn't ask you for permission to share it with the Chinese Communist Party; it just does it. That is the problem.

Scour the Constitution. Scour the First Amendment. I promise you, you won't find any right to espionage. You won't find any right to spy. And this novel right that the Senator thinks he has discovered for Americans to be spied upon--I never heard of such a thing in the history of this country. I am astounded to learn that Americans have the right to be spied upon.

So not only does China apparently get the right to spy in the First Amendment, Americans have the inalienable right to be spied upon and have all of their data taken from them. That, apparently, is democracy.

That is not democracy. That is the abuse of our laws, the abuse of our economy, the abuse of our people by a foreign government for its purposes.

So I say again, watch dance videos to your heart's content; but spy on Americans, that is where we have to draw the line.

As to money, the Senator said--and I think he is exactly right--that TikTok wants to make money. No doubt about it. And, my, the money they are making; and, my, the money that they are showering on this building. And it is having an effect.

But in the end, the American people don't want to be treated as commodities to be bought and sold, because--make no mistake--it is the American people who are being bought and sold here by TikTok.

They are being sold to the Chinese Communist Party for influence and money. They are being sold for the wishes and the whims of Beijing, and they are being lied to every step of the way.

I will yield to the Senator from Florida.

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Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, let me just finish with this, that the Senator from Kentucky decried the collection of personal data by American social media companies--and he is right to do that, by the way. I am concerned about that, too, no doubt. But he pointed out that many American social media companies collect all of this information, that they do it without users' consent, sometimes they sell it to third parties for profit, and you can't necessarily opt out of it. All fair enough, but he is protecting exactly what he decries.

The difference is with TikTok, that information is going to a hostile foreign government. It is not a market. It is total control.

So I would just say this to Americans out there who are using TikTok: Just know this--we need to tell you the truth about this app. Just know this: If you have it on your phone, it is tracking your key strokes; it is tracking your movements; it is tracking your location; and it is sending that information--whether you want it sent or not--to Beijing, to the Communist Chinese Party, where it can be accessed by anybody there who wants it, under China's national security laws.

That is a threat to your personal security, and that is why we should act to ban it.

Let me just finally ask the Senator from Kentucky--he and I talked about this before--would the Senator consider allowing us to set a rollcall vote, an up-or-down rollcall vote? Not unanimous consent passed but, as I said, a rollcall vote at a time certain. Would the Senator consent to that?

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Mr. HAWLEY. Madam President, I would just say in conclusion that the security risk from TikTok led us to ban it 4 months ago for the Federal Government. The facts cannot be denied, which is why the TikTok CEO had nothing to say a week ago. He could not deny any of these facts. The truth will carry the day, and we will continue to fight.

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