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Of course they are. CFIUS is the governing body who decides which foreign investments are a threat to the U.S., not the president, and they have been investiga

Of course they are. CFIUS is the governing body who decides which foreign investments are a threat to the U.S., not the president, and they have been investigating TikTok for two years without finding anything despite the recent executive order. It makes the executive order look more like political headline bait than having actual teeth, especially considering IEEPA prohibits executive power from being used to block speech or media.

tssva 6y ago
The IEEPA gives the president the authority to restrict any economic transactions with foreign entities if he declares a national emergency regarding the activity. The judgement as to whether the national emergency is justified is granted to the president with almost no restrictions. The president must send a report to congress within 30 days justifying the declaration. Congress can then chose to over rule the declaration. A new report with justification for continuing the emergency must be sent to Congress at certain intervals and Congress can again choose to override the emergency. These are different from the powers given to the CFIUS under the Defense Protection Act. At first glance it would appear that Trump has authority under the IEEPA do take the actions he has. Tiktok is most likely going to base their legal action on challenging the constitutionality of the IEEPA. Tiktok's argument of violating due process alludes to this being the case.
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  The president does not have broad authority under IEEPA. Congress specifically limited presidential authority when passing the act, and TikTok is protected under IEEPA 50 U.S. Code § 1702(b): > The authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly - (1) any postal, telegraphic, telephonic, or other personal communication, which does not involve a transfer of anything of value; ... (3) the importation from any country, or the exportation to any country, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, of any information or informational materials, including but not limited to, publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1702 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1702
  - R0b0t1 6y ago
    For #1, it seems the president could prohibit most app activity as it collects data until such a time they remove the data collection. For #3, TikTok the app is a content delivery platform, not the content itself. Since there is data collected and something of value, it seems that although parallels can be drawn between the content on TikTok and the list of explicitly allowed items, the whole of TikTok is something different than the items listed in #3. (And if those are the only exceptions the powers are quite broad.)
    - btown 6y ago
      It's also possible that #1 could be interpreted as having been intended to only protect a tight definition of "personal communications" as single-party-to-single-party, not broadcast communications or social media. #3 is actually an interesting one. Would it prevent the President from being able to stop a ship owned by a foreign national if it was carrying a single CD-ROM of informational materials? What if it was full of such CD-ROMs? What if part of a frozen bank account was going to be used to facilitate the transfer of information? Would not some hindrance of the free flow of information be an inevitable side effect of ANY action under IEEPA? Of course, one imagines it was not the intention of the drafters of the law to let a single CD-ROM neuter the entire presidential power. My non-lawyer understanding is that courts normally establish some kind of "balancing test" in these scenarios that can be used to draw a line in the sand. But from e.g. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R45618.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R45618.pdf it's unclear whether there's any case law that specifically establishes the boundaries. Regardless, this will be a very interesting saga.
  - gpm 6y ago
    > which does not involve a transfer of anything of value; Since the order only blocks transfers of value last I checked this exception does not seem on point at all.
  - tssva 6y ago
    Given the very narrow focus of those limits I would consider the presidents power under the IEEPA extremely broad.
m0zg 6y ago
I recall people were quite willing to "block speech or media" when Russian operatives were organizing anti-Trump protests on Facebook in 2016. What has changed since?
- belltaco 6y ago
  Astroturfing isn't protected as free speech. There is no evidence Tiktok was being misused for propaganda.
  - daodedickinson 6y ago
    >Radio Free Asia (RFA) published an article explaining the reason that the U.S. closed China’s Consulate in Houston. >The article stated that the U.S. has known that the staff members at the consulate were conducting suspicious activities, but, for a while, it did not take any action. The Second Department of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is the PLA’s intelligence unit, sent staff members from a large network company, with fake IDs, to China’s Consulate in Houston. Those technicians used a large video platform’s backend data to identify people who might participate in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and ANTIFA’s protests and then created and sent them customized videos on how to organize riots and how to do promotions. >The purpose was to “weaponize” big data technology. It delivered relevant materials precisely to those people who were most likely to participate in the protests, while other people could not even find those videos. >RFA did not spell out the company names. A Twitter account said the technicians were from Huawei and the video platform they used to identify candidates and push videos to was TikTok. http://chinascope.org/archives/24225?doing_wp_cron=1598095608.1366689205169677734375 http://chinascope.org/archives/24225?doing_wp_cron=159809560...
- foota 6y ago
  It's different when the president does it.
  - daodedickinson 6y ago
    Are you implying that presidential elections have any effects on foreign policy?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
drieddust 6y ago
What is wrong with being political against an ideology threatening the World? World needs to reciprocate to China in like India did recently. If China is a closed garden with entry gates controlling the inflow into China, World needs to build exit gates controlling the outflow from China. No other justification is required.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Marking an ideology as “threatening the world” is inherently political.
  - genocidicbunny 6y ago
    Where is the fundamental problem in doing that? Would saying that genocide is bad be political? What about if a country's government and people believed in genocide of a specific race -- would saying that said country is committing genocide be political? If it is political, is it bad to be politically against that? What is the actual problem with being political, especially when being 'political' means being on the right side of morality?
    - slim 6y ago
      Your discourse is historically what provokes genocides. you seem to use "ideology" in place of "china" as a way to express xenophobic thoughts you're singling out a nation as dangerous for the future of humanity. as if they're not part of humanity. it's called "dehumanizing" and it's the first step in any genocide. Chinese are as human as you. Moreover the rest of humanity is happy to have China as a challenger to American hegemony. so you're mistaken in thinking it's China against the rest of the world.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Nobody's saying the Chinese nation is dangerous. China is a great country filled with wonderful people. The problem is the Chinese government, the totalitarian system that's doing a genocide as we speak and trying to bully the world into quietly ignoring it.
someperson 6y ago
No, CFIUS has NOT been investigating TikTok for 2 years. It was in November 2019 (10 months ago) that CFIUS started investigating TikTok (ByteDance's 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly) [1] It amazes me that such incorrect assertions get so mindlessly upvoted on Hacker News. You've written that elsewhere that "Bytedance is a Cayman Islands company, not Chinese. Despite having offices in Beijing, Bytedance and Tiktok are not beholden to the Chinese National Intelligence law", so it seems you might be unknowingly (or knowingly) spreading incorrect information. The HN community deserves a lot of blame for being unable to filter out such falsehoods. [1] https://securitytoday.com/articles/2019/11/04/tiktok-national-security-investigation.aspx https://securitytoday.com/articles/2019/11/04/tiktok-nationa...
- bravo22 6y ago
  Re: posts with false information. The cynic in me thinks that HN is not immune to astroturfing by foreign or domestic actors anymore than Reddit or Facebook are.
  - enraged_camel 6y ago
    I would say that HN is, in some ways, more susceptible, due to a combination of user demographics and the site's mechanics.

tssva 6y ago

The IEEPA gives the president the authority to restrict any economic transactions with foreign entities if he declares a national emergency regarding the activity. The judgement as to whether the national emergency is justified is granted to the president with almost no restrictions. The president must send a report to congress within 30 days justifying the declaration. Congress can then chose to over rule the declaration. A new report with justification for continuing the emergency must be sent to Congress at certain intervals and Congress can again choose to override the emergency. These are different from the powers given to the CFIUS under the Defense Protection Act. At first glance it would appear that Trump has authority under the IEEPA do take the actions he has. Tiktok is most likely going to base their legal action on challenging the constitutionality of the IEEPA. Tiktok's argument of violating due process alludes to this being the case.

three_seagrass 6y ago
The president does not have broad authority under IEEPA. Congress specifically limited presidential authority when passing the act, and TikTok is protected under IEEPA 50 U.S. Code § 1702(b): > The authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly - (1) any postal, telegraphic, telephonic, or other personal communication, which does not involve a transfer of anything of value; ... (3) the importation from any country, or the exportation to any country, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, of any information or informational materials, including but not limited to, publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1702 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1702
- R0b0t1 6y ago
  For #1, it seems the president could prohibit most app activity as it collects data until such a time they remove the data collection. For #3, TikTok the app is a content delivery platform, not the content itself. Since there is data collected and something of value, it seems that although parallels can be drawn between the content on TikTok and the list of explicitly allowed items, the whole of TikTok is something different than the items listed in #3. (And if those are the only exceptions the powers are quite broad.)
  - btown 6y ago
    It's also possible that #1 could be interpreted as having been intended to only protect a tight definition of "personal communications" as single-party-to-single-party, not broadcast communications or social media. #3 is actually an interesting one. Would it prevent the President from being able to stop a ship owned by a foreign national if it was carrying a single CD-ROM of informational materials? What if it was full of such CD-ROMs? What if part of a frozen bank account was going to be used to facilitate the transfer of information? Would not some hindrance of the free flow of information be an inevitable side effect of ANY action under IEEPA? Of course, one imagines it was not the intention of the drafters of the law to let a single CD-ROM neuter the entire presidential power. My non-lawyer understanding is that courts normally establish some kind of "balancing test" in these scenarios that can be used to draw a line in the sand. But from e.g. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R45618.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R45618.pdf it's unclear whether there's any case law that specifically establishes the boundaries. Regardless, this will be a very interesting saga.
- gpm 6y ago
  > which does not involve a transfer of anything of value; Since the order only blocks transfers of value last I checked this exception does not seem on point at all.
- tssva 6y ago
  Given the very narrow focus of those limits I would consider the presidents power under the IEEPA extremely broad.

m0zg 6y ago

I recall people were quite willing to "block speech or media" when Russian operatives were organizing anti-Trump protests on Facebook in 2016. What has changed since?

belltaco 6y ago
Astroturfing isn't protected as free speech. There is no evidence Tiktok was being misused for propaganda.
- daodedickinson 6y ago
  >Radio Free Asia (RFA) published an article explaining the reason that the U.S. closed China’s Consulate in Houston. >The article stated that the U.S. has known that the staff members at the consulate were conducting suspicious activities, but, for a while, it did not take any action. The Second Department of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is the PLA’s intelligence unit, sent staff members from a large network company, with fake IDs, to China’s Consulate in Houston. Those technicians used a large video platform’s backend data to identify people who might participate in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and ANTIFA’s protests and then created and sent them customized videos on how to organize riots and how to do promotions. >The purpose was to “weaponize” big data technology. It delivered relevant materials precisely to those people who were most likely to participate in the protests, while other people could not even find those videos. >RFA did not spell out the company names. A Twitter account said the technicians were from Huawei and the video platform they used to identify candidates and push videos to was TikTok. http://chinascope.org/archives/24225?doing_wp_cron=1598095608.1366689205169677734375 http://chinascope.org/archives/24225?doing_wp_cron=159809560...
foota 6y ago
It's different when the president does it.
- daodedickinson 6y ago
  Are you implying that presidential elections have any effects on foreign policy?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

drieddust 6y ago

What is wrong with being political against an ideology threatening the World? World needs to reciprocate to China in like India did recently. If China is a closed garden with entry gates controlling the inflow into China, World needs to build exit gates controlling the outflow from China. No other justification is required.

saagarjha 6y ago
Marking an ideology as “threatening the world” is inherently political.
- genocidicbunny 6y ago
  Where is the fundamental problem in doing that? Would saying that genocide is bad be political? What about if a country's government and people believed in genocide of a specific race -- would saying that said country is committing genocide be political? If it is political, is it bad to be politically against that? What is the actual problem with being political, especially when being 'political' means being on the right side of morality?
  - slim 6y ago
    Your discourse is historically what provokes genocides. you seem to use "ideology" in place of "china" as a way to express xenophobic thoughts you're singling out a nation as dangerous for the future of humanity. as if they're not part of humanity. it's called "dehumanizing" and it's the first step in any genocide. Chinese are as human as you. Moreover the rest of humanity is happy to have China as a challenger to American hegemony. so you're mistaken in thinking it's China against the rest of the world.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Nobody's saying the Chinese nation is dangerous. China is a great country filled with wonderful people. The problem is the Chinese government, the totalitarian system that's doing a genocide as we speak and trying to bully the world into quietly ignoring it.

someperson 6y ago

No, CFIUS has NOT been investigating TikTok for 2 years. It was in November 2019 (10 months ago) that CFIUS started investigating TikTok (ByteDance's 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly) [1] It amazes me that such incorrect assertions get so mindlessly upvoted on Hacker News. You've written that elsewhere that "Bytedance is a Cayman Islands company, not Chinese. Despite having offices in Beijing, Bytedance and Tiktok are not beholden to the Chinese National Intelligence law", so it seems you might be unknowingly (or knowingly) spreading incorrect information. The HN community deserves a lot of blame for being unable to filter out such falsehoods. [1] https://securitytoday.com/articles/2019/11/04/tiktok-national-security-investigation.aspx https://securitytoday.com/articles/2019/11/04/tiktok-nationa...

bravo22 6y ago
Re: posts with false information. The cynic in me thinks that HN is not immune to astroturfing by foreign or domestic actors anymore than Reddit or Facebook are.
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  I would say that HN is, in some ways, more susceptible, due to a combination of user demographics and the site's mechanics.