No TikTok on United States Devices Act

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.

I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 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.

Would the Senator from Kentucky entertain a question?

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. I have no objection to that. He can watch them on this floor for all I care. Fine. What I object to is the Communist Chinese Party using this app on Americans' phones to spy on Americans without their consent.

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.

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?

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.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I understand that there is a vote scheduled at 5:45, and in order to clarify the voting procedure this evening, I would initially ask unanimous consent that I be able to complete my remarks and the following Senators be permitted to speak for five minutes each prior to the scheduled vote.

I also presume that Senator Tuberville will speak while he reserves his right to object; is that correct? So you do not need time?

In that case, I ask unanimous consent for Senator Lee, Senator Hirono, Senator Bennet, and Senator Marshall to be granted 5 minutes each prior to the scheduled vote.

Madam President, I rise to discuss the promotions and appointments of general and flag officers in the United States military, including several appointments to lieutenant general and vice admiral.

These are officers who would hold positions of particular importance and responsibility to the Nation. The promotions of these military leaders were reported out of the Armed Services Committee over the past 2 months.

There have been no substantive objections raised against these nominations. For the benefit of my colleagues who may not appreciate the nature and volume of military promotions and nominations considered by the Armed Services Committee, last year, the Committee considered and the Senate confirmed nearly 20,000 military officers, including 656 general and flag officers.

The Senate confirmed 20,000 nominations through bipartisan unanimous consent because the tradition of the Committee and of the Senate is to consider military nominations as apolitical and thus process them in a timely and respectful manner so our troops do not experience delays in their promotion or appointment or in their pay and benefits.

Moreover, the sheer volume of nominations we consider means we cannot subject them to the ordinary political gamesmanship we see with civilian nominations.

The senior Senator from Alabama has made these promotions a political matter. He and he alone placed a blanket hold on these officers, unrelated to their qualifications, because of a policy disagreement with the administration that these officers played no part in deciding.

This, in my view, is a profound assault on the professionalism of the men and women of the armed services.

The vast majority of these officers were selected by promotion boards, which are panels of military officers who decide promotions purely on merit, considering the skill, talent, and the military's collective assessment of their potential to lead in the grades for which they have been nominated.

Blanket political holds on military officers, in an attempt to overturn a civilian policy decision, sets a dangerous trend for our military, our political process, our Nation, and this Senate.

The senior Senator from Alabama placed his hold on February 16th, and as a result, not a single general or flag officer nominated in this Congress has been confirmed.

Let me repeat that.

Due to the senior Senator from Alabama's hold, not a single general or flag officer has been promoted.

As the Senator's hold moves into its third month, we will quickly reach a critical mass of backlogged nominations, if we are not already there, that will imperil our national security, degrade unit readiness, and place undue, and undeserved, hardships on military families.

It may not be his intent, but he is effectively accomplishing what our adversaries could only dream of: denying our military of its leadership and degrading our ability to fight and win the Nation's wars.

The bottom line is that military promotions are not a political matter and they are not toys for political gains, and military officers are not tokens in such a game. They are not hostages to issues that are determined by civilian authorities.

An administration's civilian nominees may be fair game, and they have been repeatedly, but not professional military officers. That has long been the Committee's and the Senate's tradition and practice.

And I want to turn to some specific claims made by the Senator from Alabama. He has asserted a number of times that the Department changed the law or that DOD somehow lacked authority. That simply isn't true.

To be clear, under its new policy--and this is with respect to reproductive rights for female soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians--the Department of Defense will provide administrative leave and paid travel if a member of the military or their dependent is stationed in a State or country that does not provide the healthcare needed.

The Department has broad statutory authority to provide travel benefits to servicemembers and their dependents, and it does so routinely, including for the provision of healthcare services. I am not aware of any assertion from anyone knowledgeable of the law and of the Department's actions that the Department does not have the authority to do this. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, no serious lawyer has made this argument, and there has not been a single lawsuit filed on this matter.

These policies are, again, travel and administrative leave policies. They do not violate the Federal prohibition on DOD paying for noncovered reproductive health services. Such reproductive health services will still be paid for by members and dependents out of their own pockets. These policies merely facilitate the provision of health services for servicemembers and dependents who may be stationed in an area that does not provide the needed healthcare, including overseas locations.

Further, the senior Senator from Alabama has publicly stated:

``If Democrats are so worried about the nominations, then they can bring them up for a vote. We have more than enough time to vote on nominees.''

Setting aside the deeply troubling implication that certain Members of the Republican Party do not care enough about our national defense to ensure that senior military leaders are in place in a timely manner, it would take several months of constant attention on this floor just to move through the current batch of general and flag officers that are presently on the Senate calendar. And this is not even accounting for all the nominations still to come.

If we took this path, this Senate would be consumed entirely by nominating and confirming military officers ad infinitum, unable to do anything else.

And there are currently 184 general and flag officers, including 11 to be promoted to lieutenant general or vice admiral, subject to this political hold.

And let me highlight just three to show you the impact and the consequences of these holds.

One nominee is nominated to be Commander of the Navy's 7th Fleet. It is the largest of the Navy's deployed fleets and has responsibility for the Indo-PACOM area of operations.

And I hear constantly in the Committee and elsewhere on the floor: The Chinese threat--we have got to do more. We just listened to a long diatribe about TikTok and how dangerous it is.

I think what might be more dangerous is not having a confirmed leader for this fleet in the Pacific able to move out immediately to any type of threat coming from the Chinese.

In addition, the Commander of the Navy's 5th Fleet is responsible for the naval and combined maritime forces in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and it is under the overall command of U.S. Central Command. And we hear every day--we heard it just recently--about how the Iranians are taking advantage of us. They say we are not responding strongly enough.

Well, how effective will our response be if we are not quite sure who the Commander of this fleet is? We have got a nominee, but the officer is not confirmed. We have an officer who may have to leave for another assignment. This causes readiness problems, morale problems, and undermines the military that we all seem around here to suggest is our primary concern.

Another one: the U.S. Military Representative to NATO, who is the senior uniformed representative to NATO during a time when NATO is critical to our support of Ukraine, therefore, against Russia.

And, again, my colleagues would stand up and say: We have got to do more for Ukraine. We have to make sure they get the support they need, through coordination with NATO. We have to do all these things, but we really don't need anyone in Brussels to help with military advice and assistance. We will just ignore that.

These are just three examples, and I would like to look ahead because this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Within the next 8 months, we expect the Department to nominate approximately 650 general and flag officers, including 80 three- or four-star nominees, all of whom will come through the Armed Services Committee and require Senate confirmation.

These include the nomination of the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. By law, General Milley will retire in September. If this hold persists, then we will be without a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

We also expect nominations for the service chiefs of the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps. The Chief of Staff for the Army, the CNO of the Navy, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps are scheduled to retire.

If this hold persists, we will not have leadership in the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, and that would be devastating to readiness, to morale, to the whole history of our government in which we move nominees based on merit, not as political hostages.

We are also talking about major combat commands--Cyber Command. Does anyone have to talk about the relevance of Cyber Command? Again, we just listened to a long, long discussion about cyber security and the stealing of information and governmental interference with that. Cyber Command is the key actor from the Department of Defense standpoint in all of those efforts. And, frankly, without a Commander of Cyber Command, I think the TikTok issue sort of diminishes in importance.

We also have SPACECOM and NORTHCOM. They are responsible for the defense of the United States so that we do not find ourselves here at home devastated by any type of attack, which, today, includes cyber, missile, hypersonics--all those possibilities.

There are also three Deputy Commanders who are coming on--CYBERCOM, CENTCOM, and AFRICOM.

So what you can see is, if this policy continues or this practice continues, we are wiping out the leadership of the Department of Defense and doing an extraordinary disservice to the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States.

We have always treated military nominations appropriately, as beyond the political fray, and we must continue to do so for the good of the service and all those who take the oath, and their families, too, because no military member serves alone. The families serve with him or her.

Now, I believe in a very strong military based on constitutional and professional values. We must not inject political theater into this process.

If we do not have a coherent, organized leadership at the Department of Defense, then we are putting our troops at risk. That is quite simple, and, to me, it is unacceptable.

With that, I would ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, and 107; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; and that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, first of all, the notion that we can simply start confirming these officers is patently absurd. There are 184 nominations that are on hold now. We anticipate another 650 general and flag officer nominations throughout the remainder of this year.

Because we get very little cooperation--in fact, none at all--from the Republicans, we average about three nominations a week--Senator Durbin knows this well--because we have to wait, during quorum calls, to exhaust the hours necessary before we can take the final vote. So we would be working many months, just on this batch of 184, to confirm these officers. And then when we add 650 additional nominations--and they will keep coming and coming--that is absolutely preposterous. It is impossible. So that is not an answer to the problem.

He mentioned Senator Duckworth. Senator Duckworth held nominations for 3 weeks. She was not trying to change the policy of the Federal Government under the Trump administration. She wanted factual information whether President Trump had had politicized the military by interfering with Colonel Vindman's promotion. That is the exact opposite of what the Senator from Alabama is doing. He is holding everybody's nomination as a political action, just like President Trump was trying to do with Colonel Vindman, as reciprocation and as retaliation.

We had a hearing on recruitment at the request of the minority. What are the issues there? The issues are that we have a 3-percent unemployment rate. One of the most significant issues facing the military services is the low percentage of individuals who are eligible and interested in military service.

The issue of whether or not this policy affects recruiting, I think, was refuted by the Senator when he has indicated that he expects 4,000 people to take advantage of this policy. Well, that is not a trivial number. And I would suspect women considering the

military would think hard, regardless of their moral position. They would not like to be in a place where they cannot get access to reproductive care. Twenty percent of the military are women. It is going to have an effect on women. Just look at the polling across the United States about Roe v. Wade versus the Dobbs decision, and I think you will find that there is a significant number of women who are concerned.

So this is very simple. We are either going to politicize and completely ignore military nominations, using military officers as hostages for political decisions, or we can return to tradition and confirm expeditiously. And one final point, this issue will be considered in the usual order because during the Armed Services Committee markup, I presume there will be amendments on both sides that will be considered fairly, and this issue will be addressed, as it should be, in the context of the National Defense Authorization Act.

What the Senator of Alabama is doing is damaging the military of the United States, perhaps catastrophically, if he continues this policy for many more weeks. That is not appropriate.

With that I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, there are two main reasons why we might not want to do this. The one would be the First Amendment to the Constitution. Speech is protected, whether you like it or not. The second reason would be that the Constitution actually prohibits bills of attainder. You are not allowed to have a specific bill against a person or a company. So this fails on two egregious points, pretty obvious points. I think we ought to think about that.

I think we should be aware of those who peddle fear. I think we should be aware of those who use fear to coax Americans to relinquish our liberties, to regulate and limit our First Amendment rights.

Every accusation of data-gathering that has been attributed to TikTok could also be attributed to domestic big tech companies. In fact, one of the bills they are looking at doing is broad enough that the President will be given the power to designate whatever country he sees fit to be an adversary and whatever company underneath that definition. It would basically be a limitless authority for the President to ban speech.

If Republicans want to continuously lose elections for a generation, they

should pass this bill to ban TikTok, a social media app used by 150 million people, primarily young Americans. This brilliant strategy comes while polls indicate that 71 percent of young women and 53 percent of young men voted for a Democrat candidate for Congress.

Admittedly, many Democrats have joined Republicans in calling for this ban, but, like most issues, the blame will stick to Republicans more.

The Republican strategy to ban TikTok comes simultaneously with GOP complaints of domestic social media companies canceling and censoring conservatives. Without a hint of irony, many of these same conservatives now rail against censorship while advocating for censorship against social media apps they worry are influenced by the Chinese.

Before banning TikTok, these censors might want to discover that China already bans TikTok. Do we really want to emulate Chinese speech bans? Aren't we the ones who say it is wrong for China to ban speech? So we are going to be just like China and ban speech we are afraid of?

The vice president of FreedomWorks, John Tamny, perhaps described this situation best:

Nauseating Harassment of TikTok Presumes Americans Will Be

Saved From Chinese Authoritarianism If U.S. Politicians Act

Like Chinese Authoritarians.

We are going to be saved from speech if we ban it in our country. My goodness. Could we think of anything more antithetical to the freedom of speech?

Go to the app. They say the app is full of propaganda, and your young people will be dancing into communism. Go to the app and search for Falun Gong, the anti-communist religious sect that is persecuted in China. Go to TikTok and search for videos advocating Taiwan's independence; criticism of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Videos are all over TikTok that are critical of official Chinese positions. That is why TikTok is banned in China. Do we want to follow China's lead in banning speech?

We should not let fear of communism cause us to ignore our First Amendment protections of free speech.

This legislation violates not only the First Amendment rights of those who own TikTok--many of whom are actually Americans, not Chinese--but it also violates the First Amendment rights of the millions of young Americans who use this social media app.

I ask the American people: Do you want Joe Biden to be your censor? Do you want to give unlimited power to any President, regardless of party, to decide who is our adversary and which countries and then which companies? There is not even a list of what percentage. What if the Chinese own 1 percent of a company or 10 percent of a company?

One of the bills before us would allow the Department of Commerce to decide--there are five countries they list that are adversaries; these are big countries that have a lot of interactions with our country already--decide which country in addition to the five.

The Department of Commerce can designate a country as an adversary, but then they can designate a company. But there are no specifics. Do the new people who are designated to be an adversary have to own 100 percent of the company? 50 percent of the company? 1 percent of the company?

This is a crazy gift of power to one person. I don't care which party they are in; it is a huge mistake.

Doctors Mueller and Farhat of Georgia Tech write:

If nationalist fears about Chinese influence operations

lead to a departure from American constitutional principles

supporting free and open political discourse, we will have

succeeded in undermining our system of government more

effectively than any Chinese propaganda.

Throughout the 20th century, millions of people were fed communist propaganda every day for their entire lives. When the regimes collapsed, the people celebrated. They danced on the Berlin Wall and on the grave of communism.

Have faith. Have faith that Americans are smart enough to hear bad ideas and reject those ideas. Have faith that our desire for freedom is strong enough to survive a few dance videos. Have some faith in freedom.

We don't ban things that are unpopular in the United States. Our Constitution even allows a Communist Party.

The previous speaker said, and I quote, ``There is no . . . First Amendment carve-out for communists.'' Well, actually, there is. In our society, you can be a communist. I don't advocate it. I think it is a terrible idea, and almost no Americans choose it. But there is a Communist Party here. We actually had a former CIA Director who said he voted for the Communist candidate in 1976--someone I don't advise you appoint to be the head of your CIA. But this is a free country. You can actually have terrible ideas, and you can broadcast them. That is what freedom of speech is about. It is not about saying: You know, I love Mother Teresa. It is not about saying things uncontroversial. It is about the ability to say things that people don't like.

Have some faith in freedom.

Our Constitution does protect even despicable speech, even the Communist Party. It operates today. Nobody wants to join the Communist Party, but you still can if you wish. America is a country that celebrates free expression, that cherishes free association, that is confident in the cause of liberty.

If you want to address the evils of Big Tech, it is not the Chinese Government you have to fear but your own. In June 2021, Newsweek reported that Big Tech complied with 85 percent of government requests to hand over your personal data. So you are worried about the Chinese Government? Your government has all of your data, and they are sucking it up from all of Big Tech. So the thing is, is your next step to ban Big Tech in our country?

There are some people who are promoting banning TikTok, and their next step is Facebook. This is on both sides of the aisle. This contagion is infecting the whole country--both parties.

Realize that this means--with 85 percent of government requests to Big Tech being honored, this means that Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, once presented with a subpoena or a warrant, routinely hand over the contents of emails, text messages, photos, documents, calendars, contact lists, and more to your government. Big Tech puts up virtually no legal fight to protect your privacy. They could go to court to stop this. Instead, there is a big cable that runs from Big Tech to the government, and they snoop on every bit of our information. If you want to protect privacy, why don't we start by protecting our own privacy in this country?

To those who are worried that the Chinese Government might somehow now have access to millions of American teenagers' information, realize that all social media sucks up personal data that people voluntarily provide. If you are going to ban TikTok, what is next?

Arguably, several domestic apps censor conservatives more than TikTok. I know this because I have been censored and I have been banned. I have had speeches on the Senate floor that are protected by the Constitution banned and kicked off of YouTube. I despise these people, but I am not going to vote to ban them because I realize that intellectually, in a free country, I don't have the right to tell the New York Times to publish my op-ed or YouTube to publish my speech. I don't like what they do.

Quit using them. That is what happens in a free country. If you don't like TikTok, quit using them. But don't disenfranchise 150 million Americans who are using a social media app and just say it is no big deal. This is the First Amendment right of 150 million Americans.

I have a host of complaints about domestic social media platforms. They cancel conservatives. But I am not in favor of banning one of them or regulating their speech or telling them who can post and who can't post. That is what the First Amendment is about. If you don't like TikTok or Facebook or YouTube, don't use them, but don't think that any interpretation of the Constitution gives you the right to ban them.

TikTok's mission appears to be like most other companies: to make money and lots of it. TikTok is actually cooperating with our government. There is something called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States--CFIUS--and TikTok has agreed to put all their data in Oracle's

Cloud, and they have agreed to work with the U.S. Government. Because they so much want to make money, they will do anything to try to get rid of this accusation that they are somehow part of the Communist Party, which is not true. It is a company that is owned--probably the majority of it--by Americans and Europeans and other Asians outside of China. Less than 50 percent of it is owned by any Chinese. There is no Chinese Government of the American TikTok.

Even that being said, they are willing to put all of it under the Oracle Cloud. They are willing to have U.S. regulators be given access to it, all because they want to continue to make money. They don't want to be shut down by the censors.

The First Amendment isn't necessary to protect speech that everybody accepts. The First Amendment exists to protect speech that might be unpopular or might be controversial.

U.S. courts have already struck down the Trump ban on TikTok. It amazes me now that the other side that was so horrified by the idea of President Trump banning something has now jumped on board to ban it themselves.

I hope saner minds will reflect on which is more dangerous: videos of teenagers dancing or the precedent of the U.S. Government banning speech. For me, it is an easy answer. I will defend the Bill of Rights against all comers--even, if need be, from members of my own party.

I object.

Reserving the right to object. I am unlikely to take First Amendment advice from someone who believes that the First Amendment doesn't protect the Communist Party. You will find no greater foe of Communism, no greater critic. I have been a longstanding critic of, really, the funding of research in Wuhan that led to the virus. And yet I still want to protect the basic Bill of Rights, the First Amendment that protects speech, whether we like it or not. And if someone doesn't understand that Communism actually is included in the First Amendment, that terrible speech we object to is included under that--this is something we should be very wary of.

We should beware of people who peddle fear. We should beware of people who peddle half-truths. Almost everything that has been said about collecting data is, in all likelihood, true. All the social media companies collect data. They devise algorithms. Some of the domestic ones have psychological experiments that might horrify you to see what they have all the young kids thinking and doing and trying to get them to click on different pictures or trying to get them.

This is a marketing strategy, and they all do it. And they all want to make money, and they all want to get clicks.

The difference is this: Many people on the right--in fact, some on the left--they are horrified by Big Tech in our country; they are consistent in being horrified by the abuses of Big Tech here and also TikTok.

But look at their legislative proposals, many of them would actually ban Big Tech here as well or put it under the thumb of government or set up government agencies or panels to determine what speech would be acceptable. And if you are not putting enough conservatives on there, by golly, we are going to have a government commission that is going to determine what kind of content gets on there.

These are scary ideas. Don't succumb to fear. Don't give up our freedoms. Don't say that, oh, my goodness, we are going to ban 150 million Americans. This isn't just about the company; this is about the rights of 150 million Americans to get their content.

You are restricting what they can do, and you are restricting what they can use, all with innuendo. Everything that has been said about, oh, this is a channel and a funnel to the Chinese Government--these are all conjecture. These are all things they are saying happened. As far as the sale of the company, I don't think we should force them to sell, but I do believe, in a heartbeat, they could be sold.

They are located in the Cayman Islands. They are incorporated in the Cayman Islands, and they can be sold at any minute. I don't think we should force them to sell. The majority of the shareholders are not Chinese; the two engineers that developed it are, but to say that the algorithm has to reside in China and is in one tiny place and isn't anywhere else is a simplistic notion of the way technology works.

The company has bent over backwards to work with our government to try to set up something that would be reasonable, including more government oversight. So I, for one, will say that I will continue to defend the First Amendment. And those who believe that the First Amendment doesn't protect the speech are in the wrong, and they will find that out when the Supreme Court rules on this.

I object.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, on October 7, Hamas terrorists crossed the border of Israel and committed atrocities, the full extent of which we are only just now coming to understand.

Thousands of innocent Israelis have lost their lives. Israeli babies were beheaded--literally beheaded--put into ovens, according to news reports. Innocent civilians were shot in their homes when they answered their front doors. Soldiers who were asleep in their beds were executed. And the terrorist attacks have continued.

Amazingly, in the United States--even as this terrible attack was unfolding in Israel--in the United States, hundreds and thousands of students and others took to America's campuses to express solidarity, not with innocent Israelis who had lost their lives but with Hamas, and to voice support for the genocidal campaign that Hamas has sought to carry out and continues to advance and advocate even as we stand here today.

Take a look at just some of the things that have been said by students on America's college campuses. Students at Harvard University said they held the Israeli regime ``entirely responsible''--entirely responsible--``for all the unfolding violence.'' You had students at the University of North Carolina who said they believed it was their ``moral obligation to be in solidarity with the dispossessed, no matter the pathway to liberation they choose to take. This includes violence.''

Oh, and Hamas is violent. There is no doubt we have seen extraordinary violence, unbelievable violence, in the most brutal attack on Israel and the Jewish people in 50 years.

Students at New York University School of Law wrote that they expressed first and foremost their unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians and their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination. ``Israel,'' they said, ``bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.''

I could go on. And I am happy to say that this body has unanimously condemned these statements--this progenocidal rhetoric--by students in this country.

I wish that it had stopped at rhetoric, but it hasn't. We have seen the assaults

on Jewish students right on our campuses. We have seen Jews barricaded in university libraries, unable to leave, as pro-Hamas demonstrators shout and scream outside calling for the destruction of Israel. We have seen Jewish students physically assaulted--if you don't believe me, just go look on the internet--physically assaulted on American campuses by pro-Hamas demonstrators.

We have even seen it in high schools, where students are chanting:

From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free.

What does that mean? It is a call for the destruction of the State of Israel. It is a call for the execution of Jews in the Middle East, in this country, everywhere. That is the Hamas agenda.

And so many Americans, including me, have been absolutely stunned to see so many students and others echoing these claims. And it has raised the question: Where is this coming from? Where are these students and young people--teenagers--where are they hearing this? Where are they seeing it? Where are they being fed this propaganda? Because propaganda, it is.

At least one of the answers is, they are finding it on TikTok. Yes, TikTok, that Chinese-based, Chinese-owned social media app that is a back door for the Chinese Communist Party to track the movements, the key strokes, the whereabouts, the information of every American who has the app on their phone.

What we know now is that for many, many younger Americans--the so- called Generation Z; those in their teens and early twenties--so many of them--74 percent of them, in fact--use TikTok as a search engine. And, in fact, a majority of them prefer TikTok to Google as a principle search engine. So where are Americans and Generation Z increasingly getting their news? What are they using to search for information? They are using TikTok. They are getting their news from TikTok.

At the same time, this same cohort of young Americans, more than 50 percent of them--this is young Americans between the ages of 18 and 24--more than 50 percent of them say they believe Hamas's murder of civilians was justified. Let me repeat that. More than 50 percent of young Americans--Gen Z, between the ages of 18 and 24--believe Hamas's murder of civilians was justified.

These are the same people who are going on TikTok to get their news, to get their information, to be influenced. And they certainly are being influenced. Media reports have analyzed the prevalence of anti- Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas content on TikTok. It is really quite astounding.

Just take a look at the trending hashtags: ``Stand with Palestine,'' 285 million views, impressions, according to the news site Axios and their recent analysis. By contrast, ``Stand With Israel'' has far, far less--64 million. This doesn't actually begin to tell the story because the truth is, there are other hashtags, other pro-Hamas, pro- Palestinian sources of information where the views are even larger. Take, for instance ``Free Palestine.'' That has received actually 917 million views, far outpacing even ``Stand with Palestine'' and dramatically outpacing the content that is actually supportive of the State of Israel.

Here is my point. TikTok has become a haven for anti-Semitic content, a haven for propaganda for genocide. Of course, TikTok denies this, as they deny any responsibility for anything they actually do.

They have tried to say, in fact, these numbers are skewed. But you can't change the facts. You can't deny the reality that their site is absolutely awash with this content. And we know that part of the problem, the danger of TikTok, is it gives the Chinese Communist Party enormous influence--enormous influence--to shape the news, the content of the information of the folks who look at it.

They have done this before. Back in 2019, the Chinese Communist Party used TikTok to suppress content that criticized the Chinese Government over their oppression and enslavement of the Uighurs in that country. They have a pattern of using this application to try and shape the narrative in the way they want it shaped. How they are shaping it now is pumping out the most virulent, toxic pro-Hamas propaganda.

Madam President, the time has come to take another look at TikTok. I will say this: As virulent and offensive as this content is, that is not a reason to ban them. The real reason to ban TikTok is that it is a spy app for the Chinese Communist government. Let's just look at what we have learned since I was last on this floor trying to pass legislation that would hold TikTok accountable and ban it from American phones.

On the 24th of this year, the New York Times reported that driver's licenses, addresses and photos--just to be clear, Americans' driver's licenses, addresses, and photos--were accessed by TikTok engineers based in China. What is extraordinary about this is TikTok has told us over and over and over again that this was impossible. They have come to this Congress, they testified before us and said this never happens. American data is absolutely sequestered. You can't access it in China. It is completely safe.

Yet we learned this year what, really, we already knew: That simply is not true. Let's not forget, the law of China--the People's Republic of China, a dictatorship--their law requires all major corporations, including, especially, data corporations, to make information available upon request to the Chinese Communist Party. That means your data. That means our personal information.

On May 30, Forbes magazine reported that TikTok creators'--that means American users'--financial information, Social Security numbers were, in fact, being stored in China. We had also been told this wasn't true. We have been told by TikTok: No, no, no, Americans' data is always stored in America. It can't be accessed anywhere but in America. There is a firewall between America and China.

Not true. Not true.

Americans don't realize that their data is being tracked. They are just on there to make their videos and put out their content. And what is happening? The Chinese Government is able to access it. Their personal information is being stored, not in this country, but in China, with full availability to the Chinese Communist Party.

On November 1, just a few days ago, Forbes further reported that a platform storing TikTok corporate secrets was inspected by the Chinese Government. Of course, it was. Chinese law requires it. It requires TikTok and its parent company ByteDance to make available all of this information to the Chinese Government.

We have confronted dangers like this before from China. Huawei is a prime example. Huawei, another Chinese-based corporation also subject to the laws of China requiring the sharing of personal information and data. And what did we do? We stood up a sanctions regime that sanctioned Huawei and prevented its use here in the United States. And we went further than that. We actually went to our allies and partners and said that we would not cooperate with them and offer them security assistance. We are talking about other countries right now. We would not cooperate with them or offer security assistance unless they took Huawei out of their 5G networks.

We should do the same with TikTok. We should protect the people of this Nation. We should be honest with them about what TikTok actually does. And we should protect them from the relentless spying and surveillance by a foreign government.

I want to be clear. I don't like a lot of what American Big Tech does. I doubt you will find a harsher critic of Big Tech than I am in this Chamber. But there is a big difference between an American company looking at Americans' data--accessing Americans' data--and a foreign government tracking Americans, building dossiers on Americans, and using it as a back door into the life of every American citizen who has that app on his or her phone.

It is time to put an end to this. We have already voted to do it. We voted to strip TikTok off of every government device just 10 months ago. States are doing it all across the country. It is time we took the step to protect the American people, to protect the integrity of Americans' personal information and their personal privacy.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of

S. 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.

Madam President, let's just be clear about one thing. The Chinese Communist Government is not covered by the U.S. Bill of Rights.

The Chinese Communist Government does not have free speech rights, and we are not talking about free speech. We are not talking about speech at all. The sanctions that I am proposing have nothing to do with speech; they have everything to do with spying, for the same reasons that we have banned Huawei in this country.

If the Senator would like to have a debate about whether or not Huawei and its affiliates ought to be banned, whether it ought to be a sanctions regime for those that engage in espionage, I welcome it. That is the same debate we are having here.

I just say this. If all of those teenagers and other creators from around the world who are putting all of the pro-genocidal Hamas content onto TikTok want to go do it on other platforms, be my guest. I will be right here to criticize them and call them out for their moral atrocities wherever they do it.

But the reason to ban TikTok in this country is that it is a spying apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party. The facts simply cannot be disputed. ByteDance is subject to the laws of China, which make American data available to, accessible to, upon request for Chinese corporations and the Chinese Government.

I just lament that we cannot seem to move forward with a step that we have already taken with regard to Huawei, with sensible protection of Americans' privacy and their personal data.

But let me just close with this. With regard to the speech itself, while the content of the speech on TikTok is no reason to ban them, I just want to say, since we are here in this moment of great dispute, apparently, in some quarters of this country over whether it is right or wrong to call for the genocide of Jewish people, I want to say, clearly, it is wrong. And I want to say to those creators who are pumping out this content on TikTok: You may have a First Amendment right to do so, but you don't really have moral standing.

We need to be clear. There is a right. There is a wrong. There is good. There is evil. And calling for the genocide of Jewish people, whether it is in the Middle East, the State of Israel, or in this country is wrong. Whether you do it on TikTok or Meta or YouTube or just on the streets and plazas of your college campus, it is wrong.

And at this time, above all times, I think, we need to stand and make that clear.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the importance of unleashing American energy, the consequences of President Biden's refusal to invest in American energy, the impact this is having on energy States like West Virginia and Texas, and what steps we can take to move forward to fix the mistakes made by the White House and the jeopardy that they have put our country in.

President Biden has made his stance on American energy clear since day one of his administration. As President, his policies and personnel choices have delivered on his campaign promises, and high prices are just part of the bargain. The administration has canceled pipelines, rescinded previously issued approvals for others, and raised barriers to building new ones. They have frozen oil and gas leasing and proposed raising royalties--costs that will be passed on to the consumer. The Biden EPA has continued to layer regulation on regulation, though I am pleased to report that, earlier today, through the congressional resolution, we pulled down the WOTUS rule that the EPA recently put forward last December.

These are just a few of the unreasonable and misguided policy decisions this administration has made that have led to what we are facing today.

Congressional Democrats have not been shy about their stance on an ``all of the above'' energy future. Look no further than the two pieces of legislation that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle boast about the most--the American Rescue Plan and the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. Just last week, while I was questioning President Biden's head of the Environmental Protection Agency, I was asking him about his Agency's budget. Administrator Regan admitted that, because of the Inflation Reduction Act,

coal capacity and natural gas generation will plummet in the future.

This is the coal capacity with the IRA. It is way down here below 50. If there had been no IRA, it would have been somewhere here, around 80.

Let me say that again.

Through data generated by the EPA and admitted to be true by the head of the administration, coal capacity and natural gas generation will be significantly lower in our country because of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Here is natural gas with no IRA, up here. With the IRA, it will be way down here by 2040.

He went even further--Administrator Regan did--and admitted the misguided policies with the Inflation Reduction Act will lead to the closures of coal and natural gas plants. This will lead to the shuttering of proud energy-producing communities across my State of West Virginia and our country, moving us further away from the energy independence that we desperately need and want. This clearly spells out the priorities of this President and underscores the urgency needed in reversing these policies.

On top of all of this, the out-of-control reckless spending and Green New Deal priorities that are packaged in the American Rescue Plan have caused energy prices to soar alongside record inflation. So let's take a look at the consequences of President Biden's war on American energy by the numbers.

When he took office, the average price for a gallon of gasoline was $2.39. Now the average price is $3.44--a 44-percent increase. And let's not forget what we just lived through 9 months ago when the record was set, when gas prices averaged about $5 a gallon for the first time in history.

High gas costs like this just create a domino effect. In fact, increased fuel costs and shortages have made it more expensive to manufacture goods, to deliver goods, and, ultimately, to provide what we want and need in this country. It has made everything more expensive. This creates additional strain on our supply chains and feeds into the inflation that so many families continue to struggle with.

Think about the cost of food at the grocery store. Add to this the price that Americans paid to heat their homes when winter came on. No matter what utility you used, it went up. Whether it was natural gas, electric, oil, or renewables, all prices went up. Those who heat their homes with natural gas are at the highest disadvantage in paying 25 percent extra this winter just to keep their homes warm. This truly shows that, no matter what, there is no escaping the consequences that President Biden and congressional Democrats have created by turning their heads on American energy.

The good news is we know what we need to do to unleash American energy and move critical projects forward. Republicans and Democrats alike know it. We all know it. We must make genuine reforms to our Nation's permitting and environmental review processes. For example, it should not take 7 to 10 years to permit a mine or a large transportation project in the United States. It should not be typical for endless legal challenges to be filed, one after another, for the sole purpose of postponing and, ultimately, killing key energy projects. Projects that create jobs, that produce energy of all kinds, and that drive down costs should not be delayed or stopped because of burdensome regulations. The current system hamstrings States and employers that are trying to build anything here in the United States, and it needs to change.

We need to provide regulatory certainty to our States. We need to expedite permitting and review processes while ensuring all environmental considerations are completed. We need to codify substantive environmental regulatory reforms and jump-start key projects like, in my State, the critically important Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Together, we should address section 401 of the Clean Water Act. We should streamline the NEPA process with real deadlines for Agency reviews, and we should limit judicial review to avoid endless litigation that delays and sometimes cancels projects.

I want to be very clear when I say ``projects.'' I mean projects of any kind. That means both renewable and conventional sources of energy.

We have made great strides in advancing cleaner energy sources, but without the ability to build and build quickly, we will not capitalize on that process.

Unfortunately, at every turn, the Biden administration has made it harder for any of these projects to move forward. I mentioned earlier the waters of the United States rule, the WOTUS rule. It significantly expands the Federal Government's authority when it comes to water sources across the country, and it will mean more people will have to get more permits and deal with more redtape--many times, on their own private farmland.

Fortunately, we challenged that rule through a Congressional Review Act, and it passed in a bipartisan way in both the House and the Senate, and it will go to the President's desk. It is up to him.

Have you listened to the voices of the American people or will you continue with these tactics that you have been doing?

So what do we need to do? Why do we need to do it? How do we get it done?

I have been saying all along that I believe the best solutions are by going through regular order--bipartisan, through our committees-- through the Environment and Public Works Committee, through the Energy Committee--and through any other committee that has relevant actions toward permitting. It is where we can hear those who know these issues the best. We can formulate solutions, hash out our differences, and compromise. I believe that is the only way that we can get permitting reform across the line, and I am willing to do whatever I can.

I am glad the House is taking the first swing at this and sending us a great starting point for how we can finally address America's broken permitting process and give a boost to energy production right here at home. There is no denying there is growing momentum in the Senate to get real, legitimate permitting reform across the finish line and signed into law. I have had many, many conversations.

I encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to heed the increased call for energy independence and help us deliver that ``all of the above'' solution, which we all say we want, that increases our national security, creates jobs, keeps good jobs at home, and that, lastly and very importantly, lowers the energy costs for American families.

With that, I am proud to be here with my fellow Republican Senators who have the solutions to energy independence.

With that, I yield the floor.