> Why is congress not involved if it's so important?
Congress creates laws. The President enforces them. This is an enforcement action--it's not unusual for Congress to be uninvolved.
> Should the president really have this power?
Multiple Congresses gave these powers to the President [1][2][3]. The current and next ones are free to take them back.
My personal belief is no, the President shouldn't have this power in the absence of clear and present danger. We need a commission, likely under Commerce and/or State, that assesses civil fines and passes prosecution recommendations to the DoJ. Furthermore, we need legislation describing (a) which countries are deemed economically friendly and economically adversarial, (b) how those determinations are made and (c) what companies from those countries can and cannot do as well as (d) how they may achieve "safe harbor" status (e.g. by locally hosting data and submitting code for periodic review).
IMHO TikTok being owned by the CCP now is a clear and present danger to all Americans using the app.
You make some fair points, but there is no way that I would trust a government agency to actually do code reviews and verify that a company isn't doing something wrong.
I feel increasingly unsafe because this app is being operated by a company that is beyond extradition with the USA. So if they ARE busted for doing bad stuff, who is getting jailed?
In an era where every snapdragon SoC seems rootable from any old application, and you can use machine learning to pick out key words from text streams, do we really need this app in the market?
ButeDance is a Chinese company responsible for complying with directives from the CCP. If one doesn't trust the CCP, then one should not trust ByteDance.
Facebook is American company responsible for complying with directives from the US Government. If one doesn't trust the US, then one should not trust Facebook.
How is this any different? The US is one of the Five Eyes countries. They routinely spy on their own people (see Snowdon et al). I see no difference between the two in this regard, other than the US has a court system that sometimes acts independently and has a Constitution that sometimes is followed.
> ByteDance has had a party committee since 2017 and is headed by CCP secretary and company editor-in-chief Zhang Fuping (張輔評), reported Human Rights Watch. Members of the committee hold regular gatherings at which they study speeches by Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) and "pledge to follow the party in technological innovation."
> In addition, ByteDance on April 25, 2019, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Public Security's Press and Publicity Bureau (公安部新聞宣傳局) in Beijing. The agreement was billed as "aiming to give full play to the professional technology and platform advantages of Toutiao and Tiktok in big data analysis," strengthen the creation and production of "public security new media works," boost "network influence and online discourse power," and enhance "public security propaganda, guidance, influence, and credibility," among other aspects.
Constitution and constitutional precedent also imbues the powers of foreign affairs onto the president unless there's legislation. Jefferson pushed for this to be the case: "The transaction of business with foreign nations is executive altogether. It belongs, then, to the head of that department, except as to such portions of it as are specially submitted to the Senate. Exceptions are to be construed strictly"
Banning foreign entities with executive orders? Yes, the president should. Also, this country was started by throwing British tea into the Boston harbor so it's really nothing new. Obama confiscated property from Iranians, banned certain transactions with Libya, North Korea, Syria, and others. Probably every president has issued similar EOs at some point or another. Only difference this time is that TikTok is popular. I suppose we never really lamented the loss of Soviet Saturday morning cartoons.
"(a) Any authority granted to the President by section 1702 of this title may be exercised to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat."
USA has given its President a lot more power over the years and decades.
This will be an unpopular opinion no doubt but the question isn't "should the president have this power?" It is actually "should this president have this power?" The answer to the second one is more challenging since he doesn't respect the norms of political restraint.
Well, the executive branch has a lot of leeway when it comes to anything at the border and beyond : eg, working with other countries such as treaties, international commerce, tariff, or war.
Further, Trump's anti-China campaign has broad political support from both parties - Congress voted to ban TikTok in federal devices just days ago.
> If Congress believes the president has used the emergency economic powers unjustly, lawmakers can overrule the order by passing a resolution that would terminate the order.
> But any pushback from Congress is unlikely, as the skepticism about the Chinese Communist Party's potential ties to the country's technology companies has gathered bipartisan support.
It's not like congress will strike down the order because it's unjustly and then propose some new legislation which bans TikTok, it's good for everyone there to be able to blame Trump even if it has bipartisan backing.
Congress creates laws. The President enforces them. This is an enforcement action--it's not unusual for Congress to be uninvolved.
> Should the president really have this power?
Multiple Congresses gave these powers to the President [1][2][3]. The current and next ones are free to take them back.
My personal belief is no, the President shouldn't have this power in the absence of clear and present danger. We need a commission, likely under Commerce and/or State, that assesses civil fines and passes prosecution recommendations to the DoJ. Furthermore, we need legislation describing (a) which countries are deemed economically friendly and economically adversarial, (b) how those determinations are made and (c) what companies from those countries can and cannot do as well as (d) how they may achieve "safe harbor" status (e.g. by locally hosting data and submitting code for periodic review).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exon–Florio_Amendment
[3] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/international/Docum...