Nancy Pelosi Has Not Agreed To The Prohibition Of The Use Of TikTok On US Government-Owned Devices

JAKARTA – The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, stated on Thursday, December 15 that she has yet to decide whether the US House of Representatives will join the Senate in supporting a bill to ban federal government employees from using TikTok, China's streaming app, in government equipment.

"We're checking with the government - just on language - not on opposing the idea," Pelosi told reporters. "I don't know if that will be on the agenda next week, but it is very, very important."

The House must pass the bill proposed by the Senate before the expected end of the congressional session next week.

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said on Twitter that Pelosi "should immediately allow an up-and-down vote" on the TikTok government apparatus bill. If the House approves the measure, it will be at President Joe Biden's consideration.

The Senate voted last Wednesday to ban federal employees from using China's video app TikTok on government-owned devices. It was the latest action by US lawmakers to crack down on Chinese companies amid national security fears that Beijing could use them to spy on American society.

TikTok says the concerns are fueled in large part by misinformation and is happy to meet with policy makers to discuss the company's practices.

According to the Senate bill "will do nothing to advance the national security of the United States."

The law will not affect the more than 100 million Americans who use TikTok on personal or company-owned devices.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre declined Thursday to give her views on whether Biden would support the bill on TikTok. "We will let Congress move forward with their process," he said.

“There are various technology applications including TikTok that are not authorized for use on the White House and other federally owned devices “for security reasons,” said Jean-Pierre.

Many federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and State, have banned TikTok from government-owned devices.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said last Thursday that the state joined North Dakota, Idaho and Iowa this week and a growing number of US states are banning ByteDance Ltd's TikTok from state-owned devices amid concerns that data could be passed on to the Chinese government.

Kemp's order also bans the use of Tencent Holdings' WeChat apps and Russia's Telegram on government devices.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the US government, a powerful national security agency, has been trying for months to reach a national security agreement to protect US TikTok users' data, but it appears no agreement will be reached before the end of this year.

It said that rather than continue down that path, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who sponsored the Senate bill, would urge the Biden administration to advance a deal that would actually address his concerns.

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin has urged the American public to stop using TikTok. "Maybe America has finally reached a point where we realize that our secrets, our privacy, our deepest security are at stake here," Durbin told MSNBC.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio on Tuesday December 13 launched a bipartisan bill to ban TikTok altogether in the United States. At a hearing last month, FBI Director Chris Wray said TikTok's US operations raised national security concerns.

In 2020, Republican President Donald Trump attempted to block new users from downloading TikTok and ban other transactions that would effectively block use of the app in the United States, but lost a series of court battles over those actions.