FCC Doing ‘a top to bottom review of every’ Chinese Telecom Company In US, Says Commissioner Carr

 
Apr 13, 2020

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told The Sara Carter Show Monday that the Federal Communications Commission will proceed with the Department of Justice’s recommendation to fully investigate China Telecom Corp. over alleged espionage and is now conducting a top to bottom review of every single Chinese company operating in the United States telecommunications networks.

Amid concerns over Chinese failure to warn the world about the coronavirus pandemic, the DOJ on Thursday, issued a statement noting that interested “Executive Branch agencies unanimously recommended that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoke and terminate China Telecom (Americas) Corp.’s authorizations to provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States.”

China Telecom, a U.S. subsidiary of a People’s Republic of China, is a state-owned telecommunications company of the communist government.

Carr said the Department of Justice’s recommendation that the FCC revoke the authority of China Telecom to connect to our telecommunications networks is currently being reviewed. He noted that years ago, under differing circumstances “China Telecom was authorized to connect to America’s telecom network.”

“What does that mean if you’re making a phone call or other data transmission from let’s say L.A. to D.C.? Well you may not know it but in that transmission path China Telecom could have a line in once that traffic hits the China Telecom line it has the potential to re-route that traffic back to China before then delivering it to D.C..”

“And we’ve seen some of that calls from L.A. go to China first then to D.C.,” Carr noted. “That’s not the most direct route. That gives us reason for concern and that’s why we’ve been taking concerted action at the FCC to stop new companies that are responding to the communist regime from connecting and why DOJ has recommended that we look at those companies that are already here.”

Last week, Carr took the Chinese government at their word stating to Chinese government spokesperson Hua Chunying on Twitter, that if the communist government has nothing to hide then he would like to speak with ‘disappeared citizen journalists’ and doctors from China who blew the whistle on the Chinese government and the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

The DOJ said Thursday that it led the review of China Telecom’s authorizations. It based the recommendations on developments since the authorizations were last transferred in 2007, including China Telecom’s failure to comply with the terms of an existing agreement with the Department, according to the statement. 

“Today, more than ever, the life of the nation and its people runs on our telecommunications networks,” said John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. “The security of our government and professional communications, as well as of our most private data, depends on our use of trusted partners from nations that share our values and our aspirations for humanity. Today’s action is but our next step in ensuring the integrity of America’s telecommunications systems.”

When this reporter asked Carr “are you going to do it, do you think that you’re going to go right up on DOJ recommendations in an effort to squash China Telecom’s authorizations and work in the United States?”

Carr said, “we will certainly take up the recommendation and probably issue a show cause order here which would allow China Telecom some process to make their case -that’s why they think DOJ is wrong and then we’ll reach an ultimate decision very quickly.”

“I also think we should be reviewing and I’ve called for this and in some ways we’re already doing it a top to bottom review of every single company that could be controlled by the communist regime and where they should be continue to allow to connect to our network,” Carr added.

Carr stated that the Trump Administration has changed course from the approach taken by the Obama Biden administration, saying it was imperative that “we need to fundamentally rearrange our relationship with China.”

“You’re seeing it on the trade front you’re seeing on telecom with whether it’s China Telecom or Huawei or ZTE,” he told this reporter. “We are finally showing some strength whereas the prior approach was weak…And I think we have rightly shifted and I think COVID19 it is going to continue to turn us towards a stronger posture with China.”

During the podcast, Carr slammed China’s communist government’s response in covering up the coronavirus pandemic and its disappearing of many citizen journalists who warned early on about the severity of the virus. Looking ahead, he said that U.S. will need to fundamentally change our relationship with China.

“The Chinese people as we’ve been talking about have been most directly and most often brutalized by the communist regime,” said Carr.
Carr said the situation also exposes the heroes inside China that are confronting the Chinese communist government “that have been fighting back against that regime and it ties into my work at the FCC because we review companies that are ultimately owned and controlled by the communist government and whether they should be allowed to connect or continue to connect to the U.S. telecom network which carries all the traffic that is vital to our daily lives from economic activity to health to power grids.”
“The key question is their trustworthiness,” he said. “Do we trust that a company — if it is in fact controlled by the communist regime — to connect to our network and to carry our data if there’s anything that we’ve seen of the last couple of weeks with what China is willing to do to hide the truth and disappear its own people that really calls into question whether we should be trusting companies that have to respond to the regime.”

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