United States lawmakers railed against the possibility of China using the wildly popular, partly Chinese-owned app to spy on Americans during a grilling of the chief executive of TikTok last week which lasted five hours.
Meanwhile, they refused to mention how the US government itself uses US tech companies that effectively control the global internet to spy on everyone else.
As the US considers banning the short video app used by more than 150 million Americans, lawmakers are also weighing the renewal of powers that force firms like Google, Meta, and Apple to facilitate untrammelled spying on non-US citizens located overseas.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which the US Congress must vote to reauthorise by December to prevent it from lapsing under a sunset clause, allows US intelligence agencies to carry out warrantless spying on foreigners’ email, phone and other online communications.
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While US citizens have some protections against warrantless searches under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, the US government has maintained that these rights do not extend to foreigners overseas, giving agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) practically free rein to snoop on their communications.
Information may also be turned over to US allies like the United Kingdom and Australia.
Though it is common for governments to spy abroad, Washington enjoys an advantage not shared by other countries: jurisdiction over the handful of companies that effectively run the modern internet, including Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Africa Today News, New York reports that for billions of internet users outside the US, the lack of privacy mirrors the alleged threat that US officials say TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, poses to Americans.