The Feds Asked TikTok For Lots of Domestic Spying Features

A draft agreement between TikTok and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to avoid a ban would have given U.S. agencies unprecedented access to TikTok's facilities and servers. "Many of the concessions the government asked of TikTok look eerily similar to the surveillance tactics critics have accused Chinese officials of abusing," reports Gizmodo. "To allay fears the short-form video app could be used as a Chinese surveillance tool, the federal government nearly transformed it into an American one instead." The draft of the deal was obtained by Forbes. From a report: Forbes reports that the draft agreement, dated Summer 2022, would have given the US government agencies like the Department of Justice and Department of Defense far more access to TikTok's operations than that of any other social media company. The agreement would let agencies examine TikTok's US facilities, records, and servers with minimal prior notice and veto the hiring of any executive involved with leading TikTok US data security organization. It would also let US agencies block changes to the app's terms of service in the US and order the company to subject itself to various audits, all on TikTok's dime, per Forbes. In extreme cases, the agreement would allow government organizations to demand TikTok temporarily shut off functioning in the U.S..

The draft document, which Gizmodo could not independently verify, is reportedly around 100 pages long and contains comments sent between attorneys representing ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company, and CFIUS. The agreements, if accepted as written at the time, would open TikTok's U.S. operations up to supervision by a number of external third-party auditors and source code inspectors. ByteDance leaders, whom US lawmakers and whistleblowers have accused of maintaining close connections with The Chinese Communist Party, would be excluded from some security-related decisions involving the US version of the app.

Provisions described in the guidelines weren't always agreed on by both parties. In several instances, according to Forbes, TikTok's attorneys pushed back against terms that would let the government alter what types of user data ByteDance employees could view. Another point of disagreement emerged when the government reportedly asked for limitless veto power over TikTok's future contracts. At one point, TikTok reportedly altered language that would have allowed government officials to demand changes to the apps recommendations algorithm if it promoted content the agencies disagreed with. A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement: "As has been widely reported, we've been working with CFIUS for well over a year to implement a national security agreement and have invested significant resources in implementing a firewall to isolate U.S. user data. Today, all new protected U.S. user data is stored in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in the U.S. with tightly controlled and monitored gateways. We are doing more than any peer company to safeguard U.S. national security interests."

Why am I not surprised!

[sentiblue]

With what we've seen in terms of surveillance and censorship across US agencies and on social media platforms, It's nothing new to the US that we stoop to the level of the very devils we accuse of the same thing.

Re:Why am I not surprised!

[ISoldat53]

We have met the enemy and it it us.

The US of A.

[Anonymous Coward]

FEDS: ZOMG ban the TikTok, it has backdoors that report our secrets to China!!!

The same FEDS: yeah, once you get bought by a 'Murican company, we're gonna need you to come in on the weekend and put in these backdoors.

Re:

[buck-yar]

Oracle holding the data is basically backdoor access.

'A new privacy class action claim (PDF) in the U.S. alleges Oracle's "worldwide surveillance machine" has amassed detailed dossiers on some five billion people, "accusing the company and its adtech and advertising subsidiaries of violating the privacy of the majority of the people on Earth," '

https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

It's "We have met the enemy and it is US".

Re:

[dfghjk]

I don't think it requires any stooping. What's more interesting is the bipartisan attacking of TikTok when Facebook literally participated in, and profited from, attacks on US elections and Twitter is consciously evolving into the enemy of the people. What does government know that the people don't, and who would be be enraged at if we found out?

Re:

[Frank Burly]

How would we know when this For-Profit CCP corporation is sending information back to China if we can't audit them? You're welcome to complain about the US government censoring dick picks and ivermectin advertisements--and it is good to criticize FISA warrants etc. , but it seems willfully naïve to do so in an article where the counterparty to the agreement can be conscripted as a foreign agent for a country that does all that and much worse.

Glenn Gerstell, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former general counsel for the NSA, said it was not surprising that the draft agreement would give the government broad power. “My sense is that the agreement was intended to be one of the most broadly drawn agreements CFIUS has entered into, precisely because of the very unusual nature of the threat and circumstance,” he told Forbes.

Re:

[Growlley]

confused - you talking about China or the USA here because to the rest of the world you both do the same spy shit.

Re:

[ghoul]

Google , Facebook and Microsoft are all registered in the US which means US FISA secret courts can give out FISA warrants like candy to US secret agencies to pry into the data of any non-US citizen stored on American servers. No wonder govts around the world are implementing requirements that Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook need to store the data of their citizens on servers in their countries. No one trusts the US legal system.

Re:

[Baron_Yam]

There is a difference between your own nation spying on you and someone else's that is independent of the underlying ethics of doing any spying at all.

Re:

[bickerdyke]

In other words: "But we are the Good Guys!"

Re:

[Baron_Yam]

In other words, you're a very simplistic thinker who thinks they're clever.

I never said domestic spying was a good thing, but foreign spying comes with both different and additional possible bad outcomes, and domestic spying does have some potential positives if there is adequate oversight.

Re:

[ghoul]

At this point the US political system is so compromised that both parties are under the control of the same special interests and political donors. The only way a representative of the people can get elected (get past primaries) is if a foreign intelligence agency interferes in the elections. Make of that what you will. US interferes in the elections of other countries all the time in the cause of democracy. Why clutching pearls if the only way a genuine representative of the American people can get elected

Re:

[the_B0fh]

Like how Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee have so much positive value to them, right? How Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Mohammad Ali were branded communists, and so many other lives destroyed during the Red Scare?

Re:

[ghoul]

Hes a b stard but hes our b stard

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

whenever someone uses the term "big" anything you can safely ignore whatever opinion follows it.

the US Gov has become the monster

[FudRucker]

"Be careful when you fight with monsters that you don't become one yourself, and remember when you look into the abyss the abyss looks into you." Nietszche

Re: the US Gov has become the monster

[FudRucker]

i have not bothered to vote in over 25 years because voting wont fix that mess in washington dc

Re:

[r0nc0]

It would be a false tautology to suggest there are only 2 choices. Unfortunately there are just a lot of loonies out there that want power. You are a citizen. It is your duty to vote. Otherwise go fuck yourself.

Re:

[loonycyborg]

You're wrong. All tautologies are true, or at least not truth apt, depending on how you look at it. Anyway, there are many issues people care about and very few candidates, so single vote doesn't carry a meaningful message. For things to matter you have to contribute yourself, like in opensource. The nastiest flaw of current governments is that it's too hard to fork them.

Re:

[Charlotte]

Well it's either that or vote for the Nazi party.

Re:

[Growlley]

well when the only other choice you have on voting day is that fuck wit trump ...

Re:

[roman_mir]

oh, and just in case someone gets confused by my comment, global warming is real, it will change the world (already has), but will change it to the point that human civilization will likely shrink out of existence.

https://youtu.be/otbxOvu069Y [youtu.be]

Re:money

[Alworx]

It's much more than just a dance app, it's a go to place for teens and 20yo, with clips about daily life, recipes, sports events, celebrities and alas "influencers". The algorithm that choses which clips you'll see in your stream is based on your perceived tastes... but could be doctored... and thus generate bias in users just like all other content providers (and the disinformaton that you cite). Who controls the algorithm controls it's users.

culterual influence is the thing

[Spamalope]

Intentional bias to influence public opinion is the real international game/power/danger here. The spying is a domestic concern. The propaganda influence is the international concern. The gov't spying and US intel employees at all levels of social media and telecom companies is of course a giant concern for all of us as well.

The very reason they threatened to ban TikTok

[ffkom]

... has always been that they wanted to retain the same kind of access-to-everything they already got from FaceBook, MicroSoft, Google, Apple, etc. - wasn't that obvious to everyone?

Re: The very reason they threatened to ban TikTok

[pitch2cv]

Obvious fact is obvious. Also why I use none of them.

become the meme

[Alworx]

In Soviet Russia... no... wait...

Not really a tech issue

[Tablizer]

I'm sure at least one US 3-letter-agency could get access to any server on US soil they wanted to, usually without asking. The real issue is not technical access, but a review process to make sure privilege is not being abused. All snooping and probing should go through sufficient checks and balances.

Spying good

[locater16]

Listen son, them slant eyed Chinese can spy all they want so long as ya do it fer good Ol Uncle Sam as well, ya hear?

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

It is left as an exercise to the readers how American companies like Google, Facebook, etc, send data to the American govt.

Not really. It's been fairly well described.

https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

https://www.tomshardware.com/n... [tomshardware.com]

It's pretty much exactly what the US has accused China and Huawei of, except, you know, documented.

We are all dirty rotten criminals

[Malays2b0wen]

And the US gov-apostrophe-t needs to always stand next to you flicking around those handcuffs so you are always properly intimidated. Because "security".

China

[VeryFluffyBunny]

So this is pretty much the exact same thing that Chinese spy agencies ask of western IT companies. It's all for our own good. Will nobody think of the children, for god's sake!

Let's make a deal

[Opportunist]

We let you spy on our citizens if you agree to share that information with us.

Ya know, if we'd do it, it would be illegal...

All that means is the US government spooks

[Growlley]

allready has that level of acces with 'American' companies and it is the base level of compliance they expect.

Wait a damned minute.

[w3woody]

Wasn't the whole point of banning TicTok because they were supposedly spying on behalf of the Chinese government? And now what do we do--get them to spy on behalf of the American government instead?!?