Cybersecurity Expert Outlines Why TikTok Is Still in the US

With increasing focus on national security, there's been growing concern over apps like Tik Tok still having free reign in the US. What's the role of the US China tech lobby on K Street and big donors behind Tik Tok's staying power in the US? We spoke with Rex Lee, cyber security adviser at MySmart Privacy to discuss this law, the Protecting Americans from foreign adversarial controlled applications act isn't being enforced in the case of Tik Tok. How would you see, you know, solutions going forward? Do you see more states doing their own thing then or why isn't it being enforced from the, you know, federal level? >> The fact is this is the federal law and it's simply not being enforced. Uh the uh Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology, um they're the ones I meant commerce, science, and transportation. They're the They're the Senate committee that has oversight over this law. There's not a single, as of yet, aside from Tik Tok, there's not a single other Chinese or Russian app that's been identified. And they're all being proliferated not only here in the United States by Google, Apple, Microsoft through Google Play, Apple App Store, and Microsoft Windows App Store, but they're also being proliferated globally by them. these companies. And if you were to enforce this act, it could have a detrimental impact on their revenues. They would lose hundreds of million, billions, we're talking billions, aggregately, probably trillions of dollars that it would impact uh uh these companies. So, it's not just the Chinese app developers that are making profits off of these apps from China. It's Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Whether Deep Seek is number one in the app store or Open AI or Tik Tok or Facebook, they don't care. They're neutral in this. They're just distributing and and helping to develop these uh apps in partnership with these Chinese app developers. >> I mean, as you mentioned, there's billions or even trillions of dollars on the line. You mentioned K Street or the US China Tech lobby specifically, right? And the role they've played, but there's also the question of campaign donors. So, how do you see those two fitting into why maybe we haven't seen this Tik Tok ban even though the law isn't called the Tik Tok ban? >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually it's those investors that are getting paid back uh namely uh Jeffrey Yas and uh SI or SIG his uh investment company they own the if you take his personal uh ownership in in Bite Dance and Sig his investment company and you combine them he's the largest shareholder of Bite Dance even larger than any of the Chinese investors uh in bite dance because he helped start it up with a Chinese um um investor many years ago, even before Tik Tok was even on the radar screen, he had invested money in them to the tune of uh of over 25%. So he owns over 25%. Well, he was donating money to both Democrats and Republicans, but mostly Republicans, and had met with Donald Trump in Mara Lago in late November, December last year. aside from the meeting that Donald Trump had with Sho Chu uh CEO of by Dance. So how they tie into this is also through the K Street lobbying uh lobbyist namely David Urban who was uh Trump's former presidential adviser became the chief lobbyist through his uh K Street law firm American Continental Group uh ACG. he became their chief lobbyist. But not only that, Bite Dance actually at one time hired him as a senior uh vice president of North American operations. So you have a former presidential adviser, a huge investor to the U Republican party, all involved in this, all who own shares in this company. So they stand to make money when the Oracle deal if that if that gets approved then they stand to make billions in profits from that. But also on the flip side of that they're going to make a lot of money. Jeffrey Ass is going to make a lot of money from the revenues that are going to be kicked back to bite dance through the 20% ownership that he'll still retain in the new company plus all the ad revenues flowing back to China. the 20% of all profits that will flow back to China. So he makes money both ways through the acquisition of the company and then at the uh postacquisition of the company he'll make money both ways >> in your view what is the solution here? How can Americans protect themselves? Well, I I I think what needs to happen is the uh Senate uh Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has to start enforcing this law. You know, somebody somebody's asleep at the wheel with this law. So whether it's developed in America or developed in China or Russia, the app itself and the operating it system itself is a cyber security threat to the end user. Period. It's a threat to your privacy, security, civil liberties, safety, data, and financial sovereignty. >> I mean, very concerning for sure. Uh, it's a whole new world, if you will, that we live in now from just, you know, just a couple years ago. But Rexley, as always, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you.