could also recommend a foreign-owned entity be approved for Section 214 authorization if it entered into a security agreement to mitigate national security or law enforcement concerns.[1] Even where a security agreement was entered, however, Team Telecom's process for monitoring compliance with that agreement was haphazard.
1. Team Telecom's Section 214 Review Process
Before the recent Executive Order, Team Telecom's process for reviewing foreign carriers' Section 214 applications was ambiguous, due in part to its lack of authority and established procedures. Team Telecom only publicly disclosed a list of factors it considered in evaluating national security and law enforcement concerns in 2018.[2] Upon receipt of the FCC's request to review a Section 214 application, Team Telecom conducted an initial review to determine whether the FCC's streamlining and granting of an application within two weeks was appropriate.[3] The factors weighed by Team Telecom included:
- The Applicant: Whether the applicant has a criminal history; has engaged in conduct that calls the applicant's trustworthiness into question; and is vulnerable to exploitation, influence, or control by other actors;
- State Control, Influence, and Ability to Compel Applicant to Provide Information: Whether an applicant's foreign ownership could result in the control of U.S. telecommunication infrastructure or persons operating such infrastructure by a foreign government; is from a country suspected of engaging in actions, or possessing the intention to take actions, that could impair U.S. national security; whether the applicant will be required, by virtue of its foreign ownership, to comply with foreign requests or is otherwise susceptible to such requests or demands made by a foreign nation or other actors; and whether such requests are governed by publicly available legal procedures subject to independent judicial oversight;
- Planned Operations: Whether the applicant's planned operations within the United States provide opportunities for an applicant or other actors to (1) undermine the reliability and stability of the domestic communications infrastructure, (2) identify and expose national security vulnerabilities, (3)
- ↑ Briefing with the Dep't of Justice (Aug. 1, 2019).
- ↑ Executive Branch Recommendation re CTA, supra note 56, at 14-15; Executive Branch Recommendation re China Mobile USA, supra note 56, at 6–7 (citing a May 2015 Letter from U.S. Dep't of Justice to China Mobile).
- ↑ Briefing with the Dep't of Justice (Aug. 1, 2019).
license to operate in the United States."); 1997 FCC Foreign Participation Order, supra note 147, at ¶¶ 65-66.
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