OPINION:
When Congress does something on a bipartisan basis, it’s cause for concern. President Biden and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Democrat, are of one mind with Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Chip Roy, both Texas Republicans, when it comes to outlawing the teen-favorite social media platform TikTok.
This consensus propelled a lopsided 352-65 vote in the House last week in favor of legislation blocking the app — unless Beijing-based ByteDance sells its considerable stake in TikTok. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, hasn’t weighed in yet, but it’s hard to see him reining in members eager to see TikTok go away.
It doesn’t help that millions of teens are addicted, drawn in by the app’s endless supply of short, rapid-fire videos. TikTok encourages users to join the latest trends by uploading videos of their own. These could involve anything from performing silly dance moves to doing stupid things like tasting laundry detergent pods — material designed to rile up gullible media outlets that aren’t in on the joke.
But there’s a sinister side to TikTok’s algorithmic content barrage. Some are concerned the app promotes aberrant behavior, transgenderism, and a general dumbing down of society — just the sort of things the Chinese government might use to weaken its main adversary.
The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act is broader than it needs to be to handle these issues, and that is by design. The measure criminalizes distribution of any application that is “controlled by a foreign adversary,” which could mean having a significant investor “subject to the direction or control of a foreign person.”
It’s left to the president to interpret that vague wording by designating whether a particular foreign power presents a “significant threat to the national security of the United States.” It’s up to the head of the Department of Justice to enforce the rest of the bill’s provisions. This is not a comforting arrangement, as both have already abused these very designations in the past.
In 2016, the Justice Department lied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by calling Carter Page, a volunteer for Donald Trump’s campaign, an “agent of a foreign power.” To get away with it, then-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith doctored an email to conceal evidence that Mr. Page was actually a source for the U.S. government.
The same DOJ then went after Gen. Michael Flynn, then-President-elect Trump’s incoming national security adviser, because he told the Russian ambassador not to overreact to the expulsion of Russian diplomats. White House meeting notes show that it was none other than then-Vice President Joe Biden who suggested charging Mr. Flynn under the Logan Act, a dormant 18th-century statute meant to dissuade private citizens from conducting foreign policy.
A DOJ that is happy to deceive the FISA court and a president eager to misinterpret arcane laws to indict his enemies will have no scruples when it comes to twisting this new bill to serve partisan ends. For instance, the administration could simply declare Elon Musk under “Russian influence” — repeating exactly what it did to Mr. Trump — to force the largest free-speech platform, X, off the internet.
If the proposed TikTok ban can be abused, it will be abused.
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