A few months ago I wrote about the serious threat the Chinese marketplace app Temu poses to millions of unsuspecting Americans. Temu was the most downloaded app in the United States last year and while it has experienced exponential growth and popularity with American consumers thanks to cheap goods and millions of dollars spent on prominent advertising including a Super Bowl Spot featuring football superstar Christian McCaffrey, few lawmakers have an understanding of just how dangerous Temu is. I previously urged Congress to take action and begin investigating Temu through a series of specific actions designed to ensure they are being held accountable and adhering to our laws.
Since then, Senator Tom Cotton urged the Biden administration to investigate and ban Temu and just this week Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin announced he was suing Temu for data theft. There was also reporting that many of the executives affiliated with Temu are directly linked to leadership positions in the Chinese Communist Party.
In April, after personally understanding the gravity of the national security threat Temu poses to the United States and its citizens, Senator Cotton wrote, “Temu is harvesting vast amounts of personal information from American consumers. In fact, Temu’s data gathering may be even more dangerous than TikTok’s and, according to one lawsuit, the app can access “everything on your phone.” Google Play also removed Temu’s parent company Pinduoduo’s (PDD) app as a result of harmful malware hidden in the app that gave it access to everything from biometrics to information about Wi-Fi networks.[x] This poses a grave threat to Americans’ privacy.”
There is so much more to be done to protect Americans from this dangerous spyware masquerading as cheap goods. In his appeal to President Biden, Senator Cotton asked the President what authority his administration would need to ban Temu. It’s unlikely the Biden administration responded to Senator Cotton, but the answer is that Temu has long been in violation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (known as the UFLPA) and belongs on the entity list which bans companies that violate American laws to protect against the use of slave labor. Temu does not abide by even the most basic standards of compliance in regard to the UFLPA. Temu conducts no audits, reports no system and has no policies in place to prohibit the sale of goods from Xinjiang. These flagrant violations and total lack of interest in addressing the issue demonstrates a total lack of respect for the US and our laws. No new laws need to be passed, Biden just needs to enforce the existing laws, something he has failed to do on so many other occasions. In the absence of leadership on these issues from the Biden administration, state authorities are beginning to step in.
Temu is a greater security risk than Tik Tok. Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s law suit correctly asserts that the Temu app is "purposely designed to gain unrestricted access to a user's phone operating system" including the user's camera, location contacts, text messages and other applications. the suit also claims that "even users without the Temu app are subject to Temu's gross overreach if any of their information is on the phone of a Temu user."
If the Biden administration and Congress won’t take the necessary and appropriate actions to better protect the American people, then the states should step up and hold Temu and PDD holdings accountable. These actions include statewide investigations for violations of securities laws pursuant to the PDD listing on the NASDAQ- where state pensions hold large positions and would have standing to divest after a successful lawsuit. State financial regulators can also open investigations into Temu and PDD individual securities violations against the citizens of their state. Criminally, a state attorney general can open criminal investigations under data theft statutes and slave supply chains. Additional legislation may be needed to have states enforce violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act on a state level.
We must act swiftly and decisively on all these fronts, for the security of our nation hinges on our ability to address these urgent issues. The stakes are too high to delay; our national security demands immediate and unwavering action.
Kash Patel has served as the deputy director of National Intelligence, chief of staff for the Department of Defense and author of Government Gansters.
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