Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) is spearheading a letter to Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler urging the blacklisting of the Chinese Institute of Forensic Science (IFS), arguing that the agency is part of China's espionage efforts.
Sen. Scott began the letter by thanking Kessler for his "ongoing efforts to protect American values and national security," adding that "The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has a vital role to play in ensuring America's most innovative technology does not assist our adversaries to achieve their illiberal ends or advance their military capability, especially Communist China."
The letter then details the IFS's apparent role as a central body carrying out the ongoing genocide and internment of the Uyghur Muslim ethnic group in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), for which the Trump Administration blacklisted the IFS in 2020.
"However, this decision was foolishly reversed by the Biden administration in exchange for false promises of cooperation from the CCP on the fentanyl crisis," Sen. Scott noted, "which was not accompanied by any evidence that the IFS had ceased its involvement in the ongoing genocide and human rights abuses. The IFS continues to play a key role in Communist China's surveillance state, enabling mass internment, forced labor, and high-tech oppression through biometric data harvesting and forensic tracking."
As a result, the Florida Senator urged the redesignation of the Institute to the Entity List, which is part of his ongoing efforts to counter Chinese influence and espionage in the United States.
In May, Scott introduced the Countering Corrupt Political (CCP) Influence Act in the U.S. Senate, which requires China and other adversarial nations to tell the United States 96 hours in advance of any government meetings scheduled to take place.
More recently, in July, he introduced the No Official Giveaways Of Taxpayers' Income to Oppressive Nations (NO GOTION) Act, which prohibits companies affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from qualifying for green energy production tax credits put in place by the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.
