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Rep. Michelle Steel (CA-48) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) sent a letter to President Biden warning of the danger that a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controlled maritime data-sharing platform, LOGINK, poses to U.S. military and commercial interests. The letter detailed how the CCP could use the sensitive data LOGINK collects to increase its insight and influence over international maritime trade, port infrastructure, and possibly even U.S. military activities. The letter also asks the president to describe efforts his administration has taken thus far to counter LOGINK.
In part, the members wrote:
“The CCP could exploit their control over LOGINK to identify early trends in the movement of U.S. military supplies and equipment through commercial ports while denying other countries the same data on Chinese military assets. The CCP could gain valuable intelligence regarding U.S. supply chains and use this knowledge to imperil our supply of critical resources. The CCP can also capitalize on LOGINK data to confer commercial advantages to Chinese firms and skew the marketplace away from U.S. firms.”
Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Bill Hagerty (R-Tennessee), Rick Scott (R-Florida), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), and Representatives Robert Aderholt (AL-04), Brian Babin (TX-36), Ben Cline (VA-06), Eric “Rick” Crawford (AR-01), Dan Crenshaw (TX-02), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Mike Gallagher (WI-08), Carlos Gimenez (FL-26), Diana Harshbarger (TN-01), Doug Lamborn (CO-05), Lisa McClain (MI-10), Guy Reschenthaler (PA-14), Maria Elvira Salazar (FL-27), Austin Scott (GA-08), Gregory Steube (FL-17), Tom Tiffany (WI-07), Ann Wagner (MO-02), and Randy Weber (TX-14) joined the letter.
Full text of the letter may be found here.
In July, Rep. Steel introduced, and the House passed, an amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to ban DOD and its contractors from using LOGINK. The following week, she introduced a bill to ban the use of LOGINK across the federal government and for all its contractors.
