As the Senate introduced the bill that would force TikTok to be sold or banned, lawmakers have heard directly from intelligence officials about the alleged national security threat posed by the app. Now, two prominent senators to the office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify and make public what they have shared.
“We are deeply concerned by the information and concerns raised by the intelligence community in recent classified briefings before Congress,” write Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn. “It is vitally important that the American people, especially TikTok users, understand the national security issues at stake.”
The exact nature of the intelligence community's concerns about the app has long been a source of debate. House lawmakers received a similar briefing just before voting on the bill. But while the briefing appeared to bolster support for the measure, some members said they weren't convinced, with one lawmaker saying “not a single thing we heard…was unique to TikTok.”
According , some senators described their briefing as “shocking,” though the group isn’t exactly known for its particularly nuanced understanding of the tech industry. (Blumenthal, for example, asks Facebook executives if they would “commit to ending finsta.”) In his report, axios says one lawmaker “said they were told TikTok can spy on users' devices' microphones, track keystrokes and determine what users are doing in other apps.” This may sound alarming, but it's also a description of the types of social media services that have been in demand for over a decade.
TikTok believes its relationship with parent company ByteDance would allow Chinese government officials to interfere with its service or spy on Americans. And so far, there is no public evidence that TikTok was ever used in this way. If U.S. intelligence officials have evidence that is more than hypothetical, it would be a major bombshell in the long-running debate over enforcement.
