Protecting Americans From Malign Foreign Influence

As social media becomes more integral to our daily lives, the need for security to protect Americans from foreign adversaries online has become increasingly prevalent. Bad actors, like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), have taken advantage of the growing U.S. footprint online by utilizing Chinese-owned apps, like TikTok, to target, surveil, and manipulate Americans.

Although TikTok executives claim that it does not share any data collected by the app, there are several Chinese laws in place that provide CCP officials access to all user data collected by Chinese-owned tech companies, like TikTok. This means the CCP has access to sensitive data, like the location of every TikTok user worldwide, including the over 210 million Americans who have downloaded the app.

I’ve received a handful of classified security briefings regarding the data collected by apps like TikTok, and it’s been made abundantly clear that the U.S. must act quickly to protect the American people from our adversaries online, whether on TikTok or any other app controlled by the CCP, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, or North Korea. I voted yes to pass the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, bipartisan legislation to prohibit U.S. app stores and web services from hosting apps controlled by U.S. foreign adversaries. 

Despite deliberate fear-mongering campaigns from TikTok, this bill does not outright ban TikTok or other social media platforms. Instead, it gives TikTok a clear choice: sever ties with their CCP-managed company or face prohibition in U.S. app stores and web-based services. This bill allows TikTok and other similar apps six months to divest from its CCP-based entity and sell the app to a buyer without ties to another authoritarian regime. The bill in no way restricts free speech or violates the 1st Amendment; it regulates business conduct related to national security concerns, it does not regulate or limit the type of content being posted.

Americans’ phones are being used as weapons against us, and I will not sit by and let that happen. The bipartisan support behind this bill should be a testament to the very real national security threat of apps controlled by our adversaries like the CCP. This bill is a targeted approach to address this threat and get the CCP, Iran, North Korea, and other bad actors out of the pockets of millions of Americans. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to advance it expeditiously.

Congressman Westerman represents Arkansas’ Fourth Congressional District. This article originally appeared here.

Chemical Abortion on the Rise in the U.S.: New Report

According to the Wall Street Journal, drug-induced abortion is on the rise in the U.S.

The article cited a report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. The group estimates that nearly two-thirds of all abortions performed in the U.S. during 2023 used abortion drugs like the RU-486 regimen.

Abortion drugs end the life of an unborn child, and they carry significant health risks for women.

In some cases, abortion drugs actually can be more dangerous that surgical abortion procedures. Despite these risks, the federal government has gone to great lengths to de-regulate abortion drugs.

When the FDA first approved RU-486 in 2000, a woman seeking a drug-induced abortion was required to visit the doctor three times — which included an initial medical evaluation and follow-up appointments to ensure that the woman did not experience health complications.

In 2016, that number of visits was reduced from three to one.

Then in 2021, the FDA removed the in-person visit with a doctor altogether — making it possible to obtain RU-486 through the mail without medical exam or sonogram.

Today, abortion is prohibited in Arkansas except to save the life of the mother, but over the years Arkansas’ legislators also have enacted various laws restricting chemical abortion and preventing abortion drugs from being delivered illegally by mail into Arkansas.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, we talked about how the decision marked a turning point for the pro-life movement. Going forward, we and others said that pro-lifers would need to shift our focus from making abortion illegal to making abortion unthinkable. This latest abortion data goes to show that is likely to be a long-term process.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.