TikTok accuses federal agency of ‘political demagoguery’ in legal challenge against potential US ban

TikTok disclosed a letter Thursday that accused the Biden administration of partaking in “political demagoguery” throughout high-stakes negotiations between the federal government and the corporate because it sought to alleviate considerations about its presence within the U.S.

The letter — despatched to David Newman, a prime official within the Justice Division’s nationwide safety division, earlier than President Biden signed the potential TikTok ban into regulation — was submitted in federal court docket together with a authorized temporary supporting the corporate’s lawsuit in opposition to measure. TikTok’s Beijing-based mother or father firm ByteDance can also be a plaintiff within the lawsuit, which is predicted to be one of many greatest authorized battles in tech and web historical past.

The inner paperwork present particulars about negotiations between TikTok and the Committee on Overseas Funding in the USA, a secretive inter-agency panel that investigates company offers over nationwide safety considerations, between January 2021 and August 2022.

TikTok has mentioned these talks in the end resulted in a 90-page draft safety settlement that will have required the corporate to implement extra sturdy safeguards round U.S. person knowledge. It might have additionally required TikTok to place in a “kill swap” that will have allowed CFIUS to droop the platform if it was discovered to be non-compliant with the settlement.

Nevertheless, attorneys for TikTok mentioned the company “ceased any substantive negotiations” with the corporate after it submitted the draft settlement in August 2022.

CFIUS didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. The Justice Division mentioned it’s wanting ahead to defending the not too long ago enacted laws, which it says addresses “crucial nationwide safety considerations in a way that’s in keeping with the First Modification and different constitutional limitations.”

“Alongside others in our intelligence group and in Congress, the Justice Division has persistently warned about the specter of autocratic nations that may weaponize expertise — such because the apps and software program that run on our telephones – to make use of in opposition to us,” the assertion mentioned. “This risk is compounded when these autocratic nations require firms underneath their management to show over delicate knowledge to the federal government in secret.”

The letter despatched to Newman particulars further conferences between TikTok and authorities officers since then, together with a March 2023 name the corporate mentioned was organized by Paul Rosen, the U.S. Treasury’s undersecretary for funding safety.

In response to TikTok, Rosen instructed the corporate that “senior authorities officers” deemed the draft settlement to be inadequate to deal with the federal government’s nationwide safety considerations. Rosen additionally mentioned an answer must contain a divestment by ByteDance and the migration of the social platform’s supply code, or its elementary programming, out of China.

TikTok’s lawsuit has painted divestment as a technological impossibility because the regulation requires all of TikTok’s thousands and thousands of strains of code to be wrested from ByteDance in order that there could be no “operational relationship” between the Chinese language firm and the brand new U.S. app.

After the Wall Avenue Journal reported in March 2023 that CFIUS had threatened ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a ban, TikTok’s attorneys held one other name with senior employees from the Justice and Treasury departments the place they mentioned leaks to the media by authorities officers had been “problematic and damaging.”

That decision was adopted by an in-person assembly in Might 2023 between TikTok’s attorneys, technical consultants and senior employees on the Treasury Division targeted on knowledge security measures and TikTok’s supply code, the corporate’s attorneys mentioned. The final assembly with CFIUS occurred in September 2023.

Within the letter to Newman, TikTok’s attorneys say CFIUS supplies a constructive method to handle the federal government’s concern. Nevertheless, they added, the company can solely serve this function when the regulation – which imposes confidentiality – and rules “are adopted and either side are engaged in good-faith discussions, versus political subterfuge, the place CFIUS negotiations are misappropriated for legislative functions.”

The authorized temporary additionally shared particulars of, however doesn’t embrace, a one-page doc the Justice Division allegedly offered to members of Congress in March, a month earlier than they handed the federal invoice that will require the platform to be offered to an accepted purchaser or face a ban.

TikTok’s attorneys mentioned the doc asserted TikTok collects delicate knowledge with out alleging the Chinese language authorities has ever obtained such knowledge. In response to the corporate, the doc additionally alleged that TikTok’s algorithm creates the potential for China to affect content material on the platform with out alleging the nation has ever performed so.