Bipartisan Senate legislation boosts authority to ban TikTok, others

CNN reports that the White House would be given greater authority to prohibit foreign electronics or software vendors deemed a national security risk by the Department of Commerce, such as TikTok, across the U.S. under the bipartisan Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, which was introduced by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. Such legislation would grant the Commerce Department the authority to determine and mitigate perceived security risks from technologies associated with China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. Technologies covered by the bill include not only social media and artificial intelligence, but also quantum computing, e-commerce, financial technology services, cloud services and storage, satellite and mobile networks, video games, internet infrastructure providers, and payment apps. The measure also orders the U.S. government to share evidence on technologies regarded as national safety risks with the intelligence committee. "Instead of playing whack-a-mole on Huawei one day, ZTE the next, Kaspersky, TikTok we need a more comprehensive approach to evaluating and mitigating these threats posed by these foreign technologies from these adversarial nations," said Warner.