FBI Director: China Can Compel Tech Companies Doing Business In Country To Turn Over Any Information China Wants

Tuesday, November 05, 2019

Today Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) attended a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing where he questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray on the threat posed by American technology companies storing data in China.

FBI Director Wray told Senator Hawley American companies storing data in China “is something we’re concerned about in part because. . . Chinese law essentially compels Chinese companies and typically compels U.S. companies that are operating in China to have relationships with different kinds of Chinese companies to provide whatever information the government wants whenever it wants.”

FBI Director Wray’s comments followed Senator Hawley’s hearing on “How Corporations and Big Tech Leave Our Data Exposed to Criminals, China, and Other Bad Actors,” which explored U.S. tech companies’ ties to China and the threat those relationships pose to Americans’ national security.

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