TikTok divestment bill would give government stronger legal position, US DOJ says
By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. government would be in a stronger legal position if lawmakers ordered China's ByteDance to divest TikTok, rather than simply banning the short video app used by 170 million Americans, the Justice Department told Congress in a document seen by Reuters.
Lawmakers and the Biden administration say TikTok poses enormous national security risks because the Chinese government could gain access to data from millions of American users.
The Justice Department gave a classified briefing to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday before the panel voted 50-0 on a bill to give ByteDance six months to divest short video app TikTok or face a U.S. ban.
The briefing included the one-page unclassified document seen by Reuters, which also said TikTok poses «key national security concerns» because it «collects tremendous amounts of sensitive data» and added Chinese ownership puts «TikTok's American users at risk.»
The Justice Department document, titled «Threat Posed by TikTok,» said any bill needs to separate the company from Beijing and its Chinese-based parent and that a divestment has key advantages over a ban.
Existing laws «have limits that make it challenging to effectuate that separation and fully address the national security risks,» the Justice Department document said.
A prior attempt to ban TikTok by then President Donald Trump in late 2020 was blocked by the courts.
«An orderly divestment of TikTok from (China) would give Americans secure ownership of their data, including posts, photos and videos while minimizing the disruption to the over 100 million TikTok accounts in the United States,» the document said.
«Working through ByteDance, the PRC (People's
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