US failed to properly oversee Chinese telecom carriers – Senate panel

A U.S. Senate report released Tuesday says the U.S. government failed to properly oversee Chinese-owned telecommunications companies for nearly two decades.

The report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says the U.S. government “provided little-to-no oversight of Chinese state-owned telecommunications carriers operating in the United States for nearly twenty years.”

It faulted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and “Team Telecom” – an informal group comprised of officials from the Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense Departments – in their oversight of China Telecom (Americas) Corp, China Unicom (Americas), and Pacific Networks Corp, which all received FCC approval for U.S. operations about two decades ago.