Congress has acted numerous times and multiple administrations have taken significant regulatory and diplomatic actions to reduce or eliminate Huawei’s national security threat to the United States here at home and among key allies such as those in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance. Legally, much of the federal action has taken the form of restrictions to those entities receiving federal funding. However, untrustworthy equipment or devices purchased with private funding can also pose a threat. The FCC authorization process is the hook needed to mitigate that threat.

FCC Commissioner Brandon Carr recently proposed fully banning Huawei from U.S. networks by closing this loophole at a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference. “It is time to close this glaring loophole,” Carr stated. “Once we have determined that Huawei or other gear poses an unacceptable national security risk, it makes no sense to allow that exact same equipment to be purchased and inserted into our communications networks as long as federal dollars are not involved. The FCC should move swiftly to eliminate Communist China’s backdoor into our networks. Doing so would be consistent with the policies underlying the Secure Networks Act of 2019,” Carr added.

Commissioner Carr is right. The FCC should use its equipment authorization process to shut off one more avenue Huawei is using to reach its tentacles into our networks for potentially nefarious purposes. Cyber security is only as strong as the weakest link. We knew that even back in 2012.