Author: Victoria Lopez

In August, the NYTimes published an article on the almost 1,000-page report by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The panel spent three years investigating the manipulation and agreed that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump win as they viewed his campaign easy to manipulate. The report describes Trump’s campaign as filled with “businessmen with no government experience… working at the fringes of the foreign policy establishment.” However, the Senate did not agree that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia in a “coordinated conspiracy”. This is despite the report showing evidence of communication between campaign advisers and people tied with Russia. President Trump has called the matter a “witch hunt” as it appears this bi-partisan decision decidedly agreed in his favor – that no evidence of an agreement between the Russians and the Trump campaign to work together was found. The NYTimes article explains the problem with the committee: “even though the investigation was carried out in bipartisan fashion, and Republican and Democratic senators reached broad agreement on its most significant conclusions, a partisan divide remained on some of the most politically delicate issues.”

Nonetheless, the Senate is Republican-controlled which I believe makes it easier for them to conclude that there was “no collusion” in 2016. A more recent NYTimes article reported F.B.I director Christopher Wray’s warning that Russia “as actively pursuing a disinformation campaign against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr”. Wray said the reasoning behind this misinformation campaign is Russia thinking that VP Biden is anti-Russia. Wray said the intelligence community has reached a consensus that Russia’s interference in the election is to target Biden. Meanwhile, Trump continues to make light of these warnings and dismisses Russian inference altogether.

As we approach Trump’s potential re-election, it is only too easy for Russia to once again meddle within a group though to be “easily manipulated”, but this approach is interesting and does make sense strategically. Of course, all eyes will be on Trump’s campaign management this time – why not take on a different approach?

As we discuss technology, A.I, and apps in relation to national security, I wanted to talk about TikTok. The app is famous for its entertaining 15 – 60-second videos and has boomed globally during the pandemic causing much distress in Washington. Though concerns around the app have always existed one being that it is “a potential spying threat” so much so that Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton called for an assessment of the app last year. In their statement, they cite the ByteDance owned, Beijing-based app’s threats listed in the terms of service “it collects data from its users and their devices, including user content and communications, IP address, location-related data, device identifiers, cookies, metadata, and other sensitive personal information”. With the app’s US downloads peaking in March, the Trump administration is looking to ban more Chinese apps as the TikTok sale is currently stalled. The greatest fear, it seems, is that the app will collect data from Americans then turn it over to the Chinese Communist Party and then push propaganda onto its users through the algorithm the app creates for each user. Senator Josh Hawley cites another concern: TikTok’s desire to influence. Hawley warns that TikTok may follow Google and Facebook and “try to influence the Capitol and exert influence here, and Google and Facebook have done that to great effect”.

TikTok has stated that they store all US user’s data in the United States with a backup in Singapore and that their data centers are not subject to Chinese law as their data centers are located outside of China.

Meanwhile, opposition has grown against this administration’s efforts to ban the app. The ACLU tweeted their disagreement saying banning the app “is a danger to free expression and technologically impractical.” They rebutted the administration’s argument over the collection of American data saying “To truly address privacy concerns with companies like TikTok, Congress must ensure that ANY company that services US consumers cannot hand over our data to any government without a warrant or equivalent. Letting the president selectively ban platforms isn’t the solution.” An article from the Atlantic Council echoes the ACLU tweets citing the sudden US National headlines TikTok made as it’s popularity grew sharing political activism (and dance videos of course). The article argues that the Trump administration has “not presented any substantive evidence why TikTok is a national security threat to the average American consumer” and that banning the app would be a lot like China’s censoring of internet usage.

TikTok made headlines again after its influence in the small turnout during Trump’s Juneteenth rally in Tulsa. Teen users of the app created videos explaining how to “tank” the rally and they succeeded in making the rally organizers believe there would be a much larger turnout than there actually was. Supporters of the app cite this event as a possible reason for Trump’s demand to ban it completely. Though on surface level it may seem like the app is to “blame” the reality is that the rally took place in the middle of a pandemic and the organizers did not do an adequate job of pulling in reservations.

I agree with the ACLU’s statement that though privacy and data issues must be addressed for any app, not just TikTok, banning this app altogether is an infringement of freedom of expression. Is it a national security threat in of itself? I don’t think it could be any more or less of a threat than Facebook which played a role in the 2016 election and Brexit. If one app or social media site is a threat, then I am sure all of them are also a threat to an extent as they all have access to the same user information.

The New York Times Article “U.S. Examines Whether Saudi Nuclear Program Could Lead to Bomb Effort” discusses the findings of spy agencies this week in Saudi’s production of nuclear fuel and the role China will play in enabling to create and build it. The report does say that the findings are much too early and that nothing would likely be built in a short amount of time. The article describes Saudi’s steer away from the U.S. post- J.C.P.O.A as Saudi believes they “can’t rely on anyone reining in the Iranians, and they are going to have to deter Iran themselves,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former C.I.A. officer and director of intelligence and counterintelligence at the Energy Department. So now Saudi has turned to China to “begin building the multibillion-dollar infrastructure needed to produce nuclear fuel. China has traditionally not insisted on such strict nonproliferation safeguards, and is eager to lock in Saudi oil supplies.” However, the U.S. has enabled Saudi Arabia”s nuclear proliferation by remaining quiet while remaining strict and intolerant about Iran’s nuclear production ability.

This article particularly caught my interest after our last discussion in class on the levels of security and the impact of nuclear proliferation. I also think this article ties in pretty well with Burn’s question on the appropriate extent the U.S. should push its global dominance. He argues that to begin remedying the past tricky methodology, future administrations should begin with “the purpose and limits of the United States’ international engagement”.