Biden Admin Finally Bans TikTok on Government Devices
Republicans have long pushed for ban on Chinese spyware app
The White House on Monday banned TikTok from government devices, more than two years after then-president Donald Trump's attempt to ban the Chinese spyware app was thwarted by a district court.
The Office of Management and Budget instructed all federal agencies to eliminate TikTok from government devices within 30 days. The rule allows no exemptions for entire agencies and only some individual exceptions for research purposes.
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are still pushing for a nationwide ban on the app, arguing that the social media platform allows the Chinese Communist Party to access Americans' personal data.
"Anyone with TikTok downloaded on their device has given the CCP a backdoor to all their personal information," said Rep. Mike McCaul (R., Texas), who introduced a bill that would allow President Joe Biden to ban TikTok on all U.S. devices. "It’s a spy balloon into their phone."
Under Chinese law, companies in the country must submit any information they collect to the CCP.
Trump issued an executive order in 2020 to ban TikTok, but the move was blocked in a district court. The Biden administration opted for a broader rule in 2021 requesting the Commerce Department look into foreign software programs without targeting TikTok specifically.
Though the White House and certain federal agencies have existing bans on TikTok, Biden has often reached out to TikTok influencers to promote the White House's messages. In September, the president advocated for electric cars in a TikTok video taken at the Detroit Auto Show. Then-press secretary of the White House Jen Psaki was filmed in a viral TikTok video promoting COVID vaccines with comedian Benito Skinner "Benny Drama." And just before the 2022 midterm elections, the White House invited TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who identifies as a young girl, to discuss "trans issues" with the president.
TikTok is known to collect extensive data from its users. Forbes reported in December 2022 that ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, spied on Forbes journalists after the magazine exposed the app’s links to China. The chief content officer of Forbes said TikTok's behavior was "a direct assault on the idea of a free press and its critical role in a functioning democracy."
Published under: Biden Administration , China , TikTok , White House
Report – China-Linked Hackers Gather More Info Than Spy Balloon: ‘They’re Everywhere’
China-linked hackers have reportedly been gathering massive amounts of information from computer networks across the globe — more than the Chinese spy balloon.
In an article published Tuesday, NBC News said:
CrowdStrike says in its annual global threat report that it observed China-linked cyberespionage groups targeting 39 industries on nearly every continent. About a quarter of the hacking was aimed at North America, while most of it targeted China’s Asian neighbors, the report found. The techniques China used have become increasingly sophisticated as cybersecurity has improved, the report found.
Crowdstrike’s head of intelligence, Adam Meyers, warned that “They’re endemic at this point — they’re everywhere.”
The news comes after the U.S. military shot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was floating over the country earlier this month, Breitbart News reported on February 4.
China and the United States reportedly hack into the networks of adversaries to search for and gather intelligence, according to U.S. officials. But while the Chinese hack private corporations for intellectual property, America does not, the officials noted.
The Chinese have denied those accusations; however, hacking is still the communist country’s main espionage activity, according to James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
In recent years, the Chinese hackers’ efforts have reportedly become “sophisticated campaigns to steal credentials and slip quietly into networks,” the NBC article said.
In May, the Boston security firm Cybereason reported on a “massive Chinese intellectual property theft operation” that was known as “Operation CuckooBees,” according to Breitbart News.
“The operation involved Chinese hackers stealing hundreds of gigabytes of high-tech intellectual property from some 30 multinational corporations, including military technology and pharmaceutical data,” the outlet said.
On Tuesday, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party is scheduled to hold its first hearing on the threat posed by the CCP, Breitbart News reported.
At the meeting, leaders will possibly discuss China’s surveillance program regarding balloons and the country’s military aggression towards Taiwan.
Republicans to Hold First Primetime Hearing on the Threat from the Communist Chinese Party
The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party is set to hold its first hearing Tuesday on the threat from the CCP.
The hearing will be primetime, airing at 7 p.m. ET — highlighting the importance of the topic for the Republican-controlled Congress.
Chairman of the committee Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) has sought to keep the committee free of partisanship, h0wever, given the importance of having a unified front against China.
“Our hope is to come away from this with a better sense of why the CCP is a threat and why someone in Northeast Wisconsin or other parts of the country should care about that threat,” Gallagher told the Washington Post in an interview on Sunday.
Likely topics will include China’s surveillance program consisting of balloons such as the 200-plus foot one that floated across the continental United States for more than four days, raising alarm among American citizens and creating a political headache for the Biden administration.
The hearing will likely cover China’s increasing military aggressiveness towards Taiwan. China maintains that Taiwan is not a separate country but part of its territory that it is willing to use military force to forcefully take back.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has a robust unofficial diplomatic relationship with Taiwan and has supplied the country with weapons and other support. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan could pull the U.S. into a military conflict, though Republicans are urging the Biden administration to arm Taiwan to deter that possibility.
U.S. economic vulnerability and the need to somewhat decouple the U.S. economy from China will also likely loom large during the hearing, as well as the possibility of China supplying Russia with lethal aid in its war against Ukraine, which would prolong the war and likely prompt the U.S. to provide more lethal and economic aid to Ukraine.
The first hearing will feature two former Trump administration officials, a Chinese human rights advocate and the president for the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
The two former Trump administration officials are Matthew Pottinger, a former National Security Council official who led on Asia policy, and former National Security Adviser Ret. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.
The hearing will also feature Tong Yi, a Chinese human rights advocate, who was imprisoned for two-and-a-half-years for her work with Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, and Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. Paul was added to the witness list by Democrats, Gallagher told the Post.
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter, Truth Social, or on Facebook.
Volkswagen Insists ‘No Human Rights Violations’ in Chinese Genocide Region Plant
A top official in German automaker Volkswagen’s China operation insisted in remarks on Tuesday that a plant in Urumqi, the capital of occupied East Turkistan, did not show any signs of enslaving workers or participating in the Chinese government’s ongoing genocide against the Uyghur people of that region.
Ralf Brandstätter, a member of Volkswagen’s China board, revealed this week that he had visited the Urumqi plant on February 16 and 17 in response to the extensive evidence compiled by the United Nations, Uyghur organizations, and human rights researchers that Chinese dictator Xi Jinping had launched a campaign of genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic people in East Turkistan.
The Chinese Communist Party – as revealed in eyewitness testimonies, leaked police documents, and other evidence – began building concentration camps in East Turkistan in 2017, ultimately imprisoning as many as 3 million people there. Survivors of the camps have testified to being forced to engage in communist indoctrination, renounce their religion (most of the region’s indigenous population is Muslim), and endured severe abuse, including beatings, torture, rape, and medical testing consistent with live organ harvesting. Many also accused camp directors of forcing them into slavery.
Outside of the camps, China has endeavored to raze mosques, cemeteries, and other sites of historical and cultural note, replacing them with everything from government buildings to toilets. Evidence also indicates that Beijing has enslaved Uyghurs outside of camps, forcing them to work in cotton fields, solar panel manufacturing plants, and other factories. Chinese officials have insisted that the slavery program – which features a trove of online advertisements in which the regime sells Uyghur slaves in batches to factory owners – is actually a government program to aid Uyghurs in transitioning into the modern Chinese economy. Similarly, China refers to its concentration camps as “Vocational Education Training Centers.”
Volkswagen has maintained a facility in Urumqi despite years of evidence of an ongoing genocide in the region. The plant is co-managed by the Chinese company SAIC, China’s largest automaker. The Urumqi plant is used for final quality checks on cars assembled elsewhere and the distribution of these final products. The plant stopped manufacturing cars in 2019.
Brandstätter, the Volkswagen executive, insisted in his remarks this week that he had the ability to speak extensively with workers at the plant from multiple ethnic backgrounds
“Of course we are aware of the critical reports, we take that very seriously,” the finance publication dpa-AFX reported on Tuesday. “But we have no evidence of human rights violations at this plant – that has not changed after my visit.”
“I didn’t find any contradictions,” he asserted. “I have no reason to doubt the information and my impressions. Regardless of that, of course, we continue to look.”
“Our partner has great interest in and is committed to ensuring a positive atmosphere and proper working conditions,” Brandstätter said of SAIC.
The visit itself, and its conclusions, prompted the ire of Uyghur activists around the world, who have spent years bringing awareness to the world of the brutality of China’s genocide of their people. The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), in a statement alongside the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV), on Tuesday questioned the authenticity of Brandstätter’s claim to having full and transparent access to workers at the plant. According to the groups, neither China nor Volkswagen has not allowed access to the plant for media in a decade.
“There are serious doubts about the extent to which Mr. Brandstätter was able to get an objective picture of the situation on the ground, especially since the visit was most likely planned and coordinated jointly with the Chinese authorities,” WUC Berlin office chief Haiyuer Kuerban said. “Volkswagen must not become a cover for the Chinese government’s genocide against the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples.”
Hanno Schedler of the GfbV called for Volkswagen to “finally face the consequences and leave the region.”
“It must also be transparent about how it investigates reports of forced labour in its supply chains and what consequences it is prepared to draw. Of course, this also concerns the Chinese supplier companies located in and outside Xinjiang/East Turkistan,” Schedler noted.
Volkswagen has already been implicated in the use of Uyghur slaves in plants outside of East Turkistan. The company was among 82 multinational corporations identified in a 2020 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) titled “Uyghurs for Sale” that found China shipping Uyghur slaves to factories and plants nationwide.
“The Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang [East Turkistan] to factories across the country,” the report revealed. “Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.”
The report found online advertisements selling Uyghur slaves to factories at low prices and estimated that 80,000 Uyghur slaves were shipped out of East Turkistan to factories elsewhere in China.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
Rick Scott Slams Joe Biden’s ‘Pacifist’ Approach to China
President Joe Biden came under attack Sunday for his weakness in dealing with an aggressive China as Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) lamented the administration’s simpering efforts to appease Beijing.
“All that Biden does is pacify China,” Scott told John Catsimatidis on WABC’s “Cats Roundtable,” before adding, “I don’t know what it is, but this is a guy who won’t stand up to dictators around the world.”
Scott’s comments echoed similar criticisms of the Biden administration he made in the past week when he decried Washington for failing to stand up to Communist China.
“Communist China has chosen to be our enemy,” he said in a tweet on Thursday. “The CCP wants to destroy our way of life, and @JoeBiden shows nothing but weak appeasement. The American people deserve a leader in Washington who stands up to evil regimes and puts America first.”
Scott’s excoriation of the Biden regime’s soft approach to China is not new.
Last month he joined Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Sens. Ted Budd (R-NC) plus J.D. Vance (R-OH) to introduce a plan to end the United States’ decades-long, job-killing free trade status with China, as Breitbart News reported.
The legislation, titled the China Trade Relations Act, would end China’s permanent normal trade relations status.
If passed it would build on previous warnings of a losing trade fight with Beijing made by Scott.
Watch as Rick Scott warns back in 2020 we are in a Cold War with Communist China
C-SPANInstead, presidential administrations would choose whether or not to authorize China’s free trade status with the U.S.
A majority in Congress would also get the power to override a president’s decision.
Poll: Majority of U.S. Worried About China’s Global Influence
A majority of the United States is worried about China’s influence around the world, according to a recent poll.
The most recent poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center with 1,247 adults showed that 89 percent of people in the United States are worried about the influence the communist country has around the world.
Of that, 28 percent is “extremely concerned, while 33 percent is “very concerned,” and 28 percent is “moderately concerned.” There was only ten percent of respondents who said they were not concerned at all.
The poll was conducted from February 16 to 20, with a 3.7 percent margin of error and a 95 percent confidence level.
Tensions with the communist country have appeared to grow since the U.S. military shot down a Chinese spy balloon roughly two weeks ago. Of course, despite U.S. officials claiming it was a spy balloon with surveillance capability, China maintains it was just an off-course weather balloon.
The Biden administration determined that the suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down earlier this month was operating with electronic surveillance technology capable of monitoring communications signals, according to a senior State Department official on Thursday.
Vice President Kamala Harris later claimed that downing the balloon should not impact diplomatic relations with communist China. “I don’t think so, no,” she told the outlet. Harris also argued the Biden administration seeks “competition” with Beijing and “not conflict or confrontation.”
The Associated Press has noted that the Biden administration has kept tariffs in place from the Trump administration on imports from China in addition to restricting the sale of advanced computer chips to the communist country, which ultimately argued Chinese officials.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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