In issuing the subpoenas, the Commerce Department is implementing an executive order signed by President Trump in May 2019 that allowed the chief department to ban the acquisition of foreign-made communications tools or providers that might pose nationwide safety dangers.
The Commerce Department declined to say which companies it subpoenaed, saying solely that they “provide information and communications technology and services (ICTS) in the United States.”
“The Biden-Harris Administration has been clear that the unrestricted use of untrusted ICTS poses a national security risk,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo stated in a press release.
“In issuing subpoenas today, we are taking an important step in collecting information that will allow us to make a determination for possible action that best protects the security of American companies, American workers, and U.S. national security,” she stated. “The administration is firmly committed to taking a whole-of-government approach to ensure that untrusted companies cannot misappropriate and misuse data and ensuring that U.S. technology does not support China’s or other actors’ malign activities.”
One commerce lawyer speculated that the checklist of subpoena recipients may probably embrace the 5 companies the Federal Communications Commission final week officially deemed threats to national security — Huawei, ZTE, Hytera Communications, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., and Dahua Technology Co.
A Trump-era regulation requires the FCC to take care of a listing of communications tools that poses “an unacceptable risk to national security.”
Huawei, which has rejected accusations that it presents safety dangers, declined to touch upon the subpoenas. The different companies couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
Rod Hunter, a lawyer with Baker McKenzie and a former nationwide safety official in the George W. Bush administration, stated the timing of the announcement, a day earlier than the Anchorage talks, appeared important.
“It’s kind of interesting they are doing it on the eve of the meeting,” he stated. “You have to think this is not by accident they are issuing it now.”
The Trump administration designed the chief order to shut what it noticed as a spot in U.S. regulation. Other legal guidelines allowed the federal government to cease the army or different federal companies from buying sure expertise, or to cease overseas companies from buying delicate U.S. expertise companies.
The May 2019 government order, which comes into full drive this month, after the publication of the implementing guidelines, provides an additional layer of regulation by permitting the federal government to cease U.S. companies from shopping for sure tools or providers from entities deemed dangerous.
“The rule closes the circle at addressing threats to U.S. critical infrastructure by foreign telecom equipment that cannot be addressed by export controls, foreign direct investment controls, or procurement limitations,” stated Kevin Wolf, a former senior Commerce official who’s now a accomplice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
