the U.S. Intelligence community sees china as its top
threat. But americans who have left intelligence
agencies are getting jobs at Tiktok which is owned by
chinese company byte dance. I was definitely concerned.
Maybe borderline alarmed. Newsy showed the C.I.A. Is
former Chief of Staff Larry Pfeiffer. How we found at
least three former CIA officers who later went to work
at Tiktok. At least another three former longtime F
employees, A crisis management unit chief and
supervisory special agents also went to Tiktok. There's
plenty more in public view. A government website
confirmed that an N.S.A target analyst landed a job at
Tiktok. Other staff have backgrounds in the U.S. Cyber
Command pacific Command and State Department. They're
generally working in Tiktok investigations, threat
analysis and law enforcement outreach. But Linds
Gorman, who until april advised the White House on the
tech competition between the US and china says these
hires give Tiktok a stamp of legitimacy. On the one
hand, this is a normal reaction to a growth of a
company. As social media companies have scaled, they've
hired threat into intelligence analysts google fa
twitter have all done that. And a popular talent pool
for these companies is former law enforcement and
intelligence officials. On the other hand though, we
can't ignore the fact that these concerns about
Tiktok's chinese parent ownership have not been
resolved. She says the lines between business and
government get blurred. In china in part because of
Beijing's national Intelligence law, which compel
citizens and businesses to share information with state
intelligence gathering efforts. If asked. The ultimate
question is is this a strategic decision on the part
Tiktok might answer, God help us. The chinese
government is their instruction out there. Go hire
these people in order to help us influence this
negativity. We're hearing from the U.S. Government
about our platform so we can then use this platform to
then exploit and get in information that we want to get
about. Americans. Former senior intelligence officials
tell us their colleagues could become unwitti
accomplices to china's intelligence services. Their ol
skills like mapping networks of terrorists could
potentially be used to target china's critics and
opponents. This after a researcher said Tiktok can
track every keystroke that users make it possible that
Tiktok or its parent company Byte dance could be
monitoring and collecting keyst and other data from
their former U.S. Intelligence employees and then
learning how they do their jobs couldn't be done more
subtly through investigations of the employees
backgrounds through idle chitch The office of the
classic ways in which an intelligence service can get
information from individuals. A Tiktok spokesperson
told us that's a fantastical and unsubstantiat
hypothesis and downplayed ties to china. The
spokesperson also said the platform would be
irresponsible not to hire people with experience in
issues like counter terrorism and covert influence but
fears persist that the private data of US based Tiktok
users their search histories biometrics interests
vulnerabilities can be accessed. And exploited in
Beijing buzzfeed reported that China based engineers
have accessed. US users private data multiple times for
reported that Tiktok parent company Bytedance planne
to use the Tiktok app to monitor the personal locatio
of some specific american citizens. A Tiktok executive
invoked the C.I.A. To defend the company and as actual
national security agencies like the CIA during the
trump administration pointed ou the data. That's a
because it's an entertainment app is not national
security importance. Numerous government agencies don't
allow Tiktok on their employees devices and the FBI is
sounding alarms on the Chinese government's activi
in the U.S. When I last looked, we were opening a new
china counterintelligence inves about every 12
hours. Uh and it's about a 1300% increase from several
years ago. Three national security lawyers tell us that
just taking a job at Tiktok after government work is
illegal. But Newsy learned of a 2021 memo that the
director of the C.I.A. Is counterintelligence m
center sent to former officers. The jet warning said
another detrimental trend we're seeing is foreign
governments either directly or indirectly hiring former
intelligence officials to build up their spying
capabilities. I can't mince words former CIA officers
who pursue this type of employment are engaging in
activity that may undermine the agency's mission to the
benefit of US competitors and foreign adversaries. The
CIA and FBI asked Newsy for the names we found of
Tiktok employees but then declined to comment. Doug
wise, a former member of the C.I.A. Senior intelligen
service who was also number two at the Defense
Intelligence Agency, believes that's because the
agency's thing, it's improper to criticize anyone by
name. I believe that the US government considers it to
be highly inappropriate. I know see a wood and it
would be an overreach of the U.S. Government in terms
of intrusion into the personal and private life of
former U.S. Government employees or former intelligenc
officers. He says America's freedoms give china an
advantage. Now nearly all of these Tiktok employees
shared their professional backgrounds in their public
profiles, which I then confirmed and I contacted them
in different ways. Didn't hear back from a single
person there now, depending on their level of seniority
when they were in the government, according to a
document that I obtained, they would need to seek
approval. So that means that the top levels of their
service or their agency would have to sign off on this
chance