Apparently you are not aware of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires that “Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law.” Unlike American companies who receive requests from the U.S. government, ByteDance simply has no recourse when faced with orders from China’s authoritarian government.

US companies similarly have to comply with secret orders[1] from the US government, so I agree with the parent that it looks pretty much the same from the perspective of us foreigners.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

What you have shown is in no way, by any stretch of the imagination, close or equivalent. It is not even close, by a country mile.

Taken from the article you shared:

"By law, NSLs can request only non-content information, for example, transactional records and phone numbers dialed, but never the content of telephone calls or e-mails."

"Moreover, a recipient of the NSL may still challenge the nondisclosure provision in federal court."

That the company may eventually be allowed to tell us after they fact that they surrendered out data to the US government is not much of a comfort.

In any case, I'm not sure that any of the protections apply to foreigners (the criticism is all about how they might accidentally target Americans) so for those who are neither Chinese nor American citizens, it makes no difference. I would be happy to be completely wrong about this if you have information about how foreign citizens' rights are protected from US intelligence gathering.

The NSLs were merely meant as an example to show how US companies can also be compelled to assist in their government's intelligence gathering. You're right that they can (in theory?) challenge the secrecy part specifically.

> That the company may eventually be allowed to tell us after they fact that they surrendered out data to the US government is not much of a comfort.

Did you read my comment?

The request can be fought in court, and the request does not give them access to actual contents. For example, they can NOT get the contents of an email.

Are you not aware that Apple has beaten the FBI several times in court and did not have to unlock an iPhone?

> In any case, I'm not sure that any of the protections apply to foreigners

This has nothing to do with citizens or foreigners. This is about companies. US Companies do not need to comply with US Government requests for information, Chinese companies MUST comply with ALL government requests to ALL information.

I did read your comment, where you pointed out that companies can challenge the nondisclosure provision. It doesn't say anything about challenging the order itself.

Edit: Also, regarding companies/citizens/foreigners, this is the NSA program under which it collects data from American companies and promises to only use it to spy on foreigners: "PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies ... U.S. government officials have ... defended the program, asserting that it cannot be used on domestic targets without a warrant"[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)

>Are you not aware that Apple has beaten the FBI several times in court and did not have to unlock an iPhone

This is not quite what happened. In the most famous cases, the FBI wanted (effectively) for Apple to build them a back donor that they could use as they wished. Apple argued that while it was legal for the government to demand information with a warrant, it was not legal to force programmers to write code for the FBI under threat of legal action.

Moreover the case was dismissed after the FBI admitted they could already access the phone in question, having purchased an exploit for it from a vendor.

> The request can be fought in court

Only on the FISA court, a secret parallel court system.

An NSL often includes a prohibition against even telling a companies own counsel that the NSL was served and for many years the FBI didn’t tell people this was even possible to challenge (until a 2008 appellate court ruling). Even after that point, barely one in fifty thousand letters even get to the point of a court hearing. It’s de factor quite similar.

In addition, the legal challenge usually happens AFTER the letter is complied with, which makes it moot.

These letters can, and do, end up causing companies to fold (e.g. lavabit) if they refuse to comply.

Like many other national security issues (such as FISA court rubber stamps) there are theoretical checks and balances that do not tend to do much checking or balancing in practice.