The TikTok Ban Is Security State Protectionism

U.S. intelligence agencies and data giants aren’t about to let someone who isn’t them invade your privacy.

by Spencer Ackerman, Forever Wars

A funny thing happened as the House of Representatives moved in swift, bipartisan fashion to ban TikTok on the grounds that it puts American users’ privacy at risk from a malicious state actor. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Oh.), the House intelligence committee chairman, gave a closed-door presentation in December, WIRED’s Dell Cameron reported last week, urging the wholesale renewal of the mass-surveillance authority known as Section 702 by citing the need for the FBI to warrantlessly query the NSA’s 702-derived databases for information tying pro-Palestinian demonstrators to Hamas.

It’s as distilled an example as any of how inherently abusive Section 702 surveillance is to Americans’ privacy (and data security). The purpose of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), of which Section 702 became a component in 2008, is to ensure that U.S. intelligence doesn’t use its immense powers of intrusion against political dissenters without credible evidence of ties to a foreign power. But Section 702 permits, among other things, the FBI to sift through NSA-collected intelligence without any credible restriction. After 702 became a tool to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters, a U.S. Senator, and even a “judge who alleged civil rights violations by a municipal chief of police,” Turner is merely making the subtext explicit.

a user holds a phone with tiktok on the screen

And for quite a while, Turner—who, I repeat, is the chairman of the House intelligence committee, which oversees the intelligence agencies—has sought to ban TikTok. Among his arguments is that China can manipulate TikTok’s algorithm to push propaganda on Americans. Meanwhile, as Dell reports, Turner’s non-public presentation derived from conflating two separate protests and a piece of baseless innuendo asserting a Hamas connection by a right-wing reporter turned GOP congressional candidate—the implication being that counterterrorism tools should be used to dry up the finances and ultimately the freedom of Americans who oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Whoops!