THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Tuesday, December 1, 2020 |A
Ski Resorts Adjust for Coronavirus Precautions
SAFETY MEASURES: Maine’s ski areas have been implementing modifications to meet the state’s Covid-19 safety protocols. Changes
at Shawnee Peak in Bridgton, Maine, pictured here on Monday, include new sheltered outdoor food service.ROBERT F. BUKATY/ASSOCIATED PRESSdidn’t respond to requests to
comment. A spokeswoman for
U.S. Customs and Border Pro-
tection said she couldn’t com-
ment without knowing more
specifics but that the agency
“is committed to the fair, im-
partial and respectful treat-
ment of all members of the
trade and traveling public.”
Application forms for for-
eign nationals seeking U.S. vi-
sas for temporary travel to the
country, including crew mem-
ber visas, have included a
question on whether the appli-
cant is “a member of or affili-
ated with the Communist or
other totalitarian party.”
Putting greater scrutiny on
personnel with Chinese state
airlines in the U.S. is part of an
escalating Trump administra-tion pressure campaign against
Beijing, according to U.S. offi-
cials. The issue came up in
2016 when investigations into
bribery at the United Nations
led to accusations that a U.S.-
based manager for Air China
helped smuggle packages for
the Chinese military; the man-
ager later pleaded guilty to
acting as an agent for the Chi-
nese government.
Investigations this year into
the U.S. activities of Chinese
researchers with ties to China’s
military also found that Chi-
nese airline personnel were re-
minding the researchers to
wipe clean their electronic de-
vices in case they were ques-
tioned by law enforcement be-
fore boarding. Those findings
fed into the larger policy dis-U.S. NEWS
third-party sellers to unfairly
compete against them. Ama-
zon declined to comment.
The commission also has
opened two antitrust probes
to determine whether Apple
violated competition laws with
its App Store and Apple Pay
service.
Apple has said it is “disap-
pointing the European Com-
mission is advancing baseless
complaints from a handful of
companies who simply want a
free ride, and don’t want to
play by the same rules as ev-
eryone else.”
The FTC is nearing ap-
proval of an antitrust suit
against Facebook in coming
days, according to people fa-
miliar with the matter. The
commission has been focused
on whether Facebook stifled
competition through acquisi-
tions such as Instagram and
WhatsApp. One holdup has
been the question of whether
to file the case in federal dis-
trict court or in the FTC’s own
administrative court, these
people said.
Filing in the administrative
court would give the FTC cer-
tain procedural advantages.
But for now, the FTC appears
likely to file in district court,
where its suit could be com-
bined with a possible suit by
state attorneys general, people
familiar with the matter said.
The coalition of state attor-
neys general, led by New York
Attorney General Letitia James,
could file its own case against
Facebook in federal district
court in early December, these
people said, although the exact
timing could depend on
whether the suit would be filed
jointly with the FTC.
In a statement, Ms. James
declined to comment on a con-
tinuing investigation but said
her office “will continue to use
every investigative tool at our
disposal to determine whether
Facebook’s actions stifled
competition, reduced choices,
or put user data at risk.” Face-
book declined to comment.
Another coalition of state
attorneys general, led by Ken
Paxton of Texas, is aiming to
file an antitrust case against
Google over its powerful on-
line-advertising business.
While DOJ’s case against
Google focuses on its search
services, the Texas-led probe
centers on its sprawling ad-
tech business.
Google has called the DOJ
case flawed, and has said that
people “use Google because
they choose to, not because
they’re forced to, or because
they can’t find alternatives.”WASHINGTON—The legal
woes ofFacebookInc. andAl-
phabetInc.’s Google are ex-
pected to worsen in the com-
ing weeks as federal and state
antitrust authorities prepare
to file new lawsuits, people fa-
miliar with the matter said.
The authorities are ready-
ing as many as four more
cases targeting Google or
Facebook by the end of Janu-
ary, these people said, follow-
ing the Justice Department’s
antitrust lawsuit against
Google in October.
Federal and state officials
are probing whether the tech
giants abused their power in
the internet economy—Google
to dominate search and adver-
tising, and Facebook to domi-
nate social media.
Google and Facebook have
denied doing so, saying they
operate in highly competitive
markets and that their ser-
vices, which are mostly free,
benefit consumers.
If Facebook were to be sued,
it would mark the first govern-
ment antitrust action against
the social-media titan in the
U.S. Facebook has come under
particular criticism from Re-
publicans and Democrats in
Congress as well as President-
elect Joe Biden over its con-
tent-moderation policies.
Democrats generally con-
tend the company has been
too lax in policing misleading
speech, while Republicans say
Facebook has sometimes sup-
pressed conservatives. Face-
book has said it aims to sup-
port free speech while limiting
hate speech and other harmful
content.
Apple Inc. and Amazon
Inc., which along with Google
and Facebook came under fire
from a congressional panel in
July, also are under scrutiny
from antitrust officials.
The Federal Trade Commis-
sion has been investigating
whether Amazon unfairly uses
its size and platform against
competitors and other sellers
on its site. The Justice Depart-
ment also has been examining
Apple’s use of its App Store
for possible anticompetitive
practices.
Amazon also faces fresh le-
gal battles with the European
Union after the bloc charged
the online retailer with violat-
ing competition law in a new
salvo in its scrutiny of U.S.
tech corporations. The Euro-
pean Commission—the bloc’s
top antitrust enforcer—
charged Amazon with using
nonpublic data it gathers from
BYJOHND.MCKINNON
Suits Against
Tech Giants
Are Prepared
lenging the president’s policy.
Census data is due to be deliv-
ered to Congress in January.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh
called the argument for delay
“forceful.” He added: “You’re
not saying, as to judicial re-
view, ‘Not now, not ever,’
you’re just saying ‘Not now.’ ”
Justice Elena Kagan, how-
ever, suggested that the
Trump administration already
knew enough to exclude sig-
nificant numbers of nonciti-
zens—not only the tens ofthousands in ICE custody, but
nearly 200,000 others under
deportation orders, some
700,000 in the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals, or
DACA, program that autho-
rized work permits for those
brought to the U.S. as chil-
dren, and another 3.2 million
foreign citizens currently in
removal proceedings.
“Obviously, you have pa-
pers, all kinds of records on
those people, so I would thinkthat that sounds pretty feasi-
ble to me,” she said.
Mr. Wall said there re-
mained difficulties in deleting
such individuals from the
count, because they must
match DACA or other records
with specific census responses.
Mr. Trump has long sought
to remove millions of nonciti-
zens from the formula that di-
vides the 435 House seats
among the 50 states, but last
year the Supreme Court
blocked the administration
from adding a citizenship
question to census question-
naires. Mr. Trump instead di-
rected government agencies to
use other records to match im-
migrants in the country ille-
gally with census responses.
Excluding such immigrants
from the decennial reappor-
tionment likely would strip
representation from some blue
states with large immigrant
populations in favor of more
rural and less-populated Re-
publican-leaning states. Mr.
Trump’s July order made clear
that was his goal, predicting
that California, which currently
sends an overwhelmingly Dem-
ocratic delegation to Congress,
would lose two or three House
seats if immigrants lacking le-
gal status were excluded from
reapportionment.
New York and other statesexpected to suffer under the
Trump policy filed suit, and
several federal courts have
found the policy unconstitu-
tional.
The 14th Amendment re-
quires “counting the whole
number of persons in each
State, excluding Indians not
taxed,” and the 1929 law laying
out the reapportionment pro-
cedure repeats that language.
The government never be-
fore has sought to exclude ille-
gal immigrants from the count,
but Mr. Wall argued that it al-
ways had the power to do so.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett
suggested that even if the dis-
pute got to the merits, the
Trump administration was on
shaky ground. “A lot of the
historical evidence and long-
standing practice really cuts
against your position,” Justice
Barrett told Mr. Wall.
New York’s lawyer, state So-
licitor General Barbara Under-
wood, argued that the Consti-
tution had reason for using
total population rather than
assigning political power to a
subset of inhabitants.
“People who live in a state
without lawful immigration
status still live there,” she said,
and “their presence requires
attention from the government,
and the need for representa-
tives to give that attention.”WASHINGTON—Several jus-
tices suggested Monday that
the Supreme Court put off rul-
ing on President Trump’s plan
to exclude immigrants in
the country illegally from pop-
ulation figures used to appor-
tion congressional seats, after
the administration’s lawyer
said the government might not
be able to assemble the
needed data quickly enough to
meet January deadlines.
“I think it is very unlikely
that the bureau will be able to
identify all or substantially all
illegal aliens present in the
country, anything like the 10
or 11 or 12 million numbers
that are flying around,” acting
U.S. Solicitor General Jeffrey
Wall told the court. Certain
subgroups are easy to count,
he said, such as individuals
detained at Immigration and
Customs Enforcement lockups,
but “the question is where it
will fall in the middle.”
Mr. Wall urged the court to
delay any action until the
Trump administration de-
ducted all or a portion of ille-
gal immigrants from the
count—and it was clear that
the change actually stripped
political representation from
the more urban, Democratic-
leaning states that are chal-BYJESSBRAVINGovernment Lawyer Urges Justices
To Delay Ruling on Census Plan
Mr.Trumphassought
toremovenoncitizens
fromthecountthat
dividesHouseseats.cussion about further get-
tough measures against Bei-
jing, the officials said.
Members of China’s ruling
Communist Party participate in
virtually all types of interac-
tion that China has with the
U.S., from big business to tour-
ism and cultural exchange.
Ms. Hua’s comments came
hours after a state-run newspa-
per, China Daily, citing sources
it didn’t identify, reported that
U.S. law-enforcement agents
have in recent months been
questioning Chinese airline and
shipping crews on whether
they are Communist Party
members and why they joined.
As of Nov. 11, China Daily
said, U.S. law-enforcement offi-
cers and plainclothes personnel
had boarded 21 ships owned by
two Chinese state enterprises,
Cosco Shipping HoldingsCo.
and Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy
Industries Co., including 16
vessels that were inspected
over the course of 25 days in
October.
Cosco and Zhenhua didn’t
respond to requests to com-
ment.
Most of the affected ships
were boarded immediately af-
ter they berthed, according to
China Daily, which said U.S. of-
ficials conducted extensive
questioning of Chinese person-
nel that focused on Communist
Party membership and some-
times lasted several hours.
—Raffaele Huang
and Aruna Viswanatha
contributed to this article.HONG KONG—China ac-
cused American officials of ha-
rassing Chinese airline and
shipping crews that arrive in
the U.S. in attempts to single
out Communist Party mem-
bers, and warned that Beijing
may retaliate against Washing-
ton for what it considers to be
provocative behavior.
Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Hua Chunying
said U.S. law-enforcement per-
sonnel have recently con-
ducted surprise raids on sail-
ors aboard arriving Chinese
ships and questioned arriving
Chinese airline crews to ascer-
tain whether they are mem-
bers of the Communist Party.
She didn’t offer details.
Ms. Hua denounced such en-
forcement actions as a severe
political provocation designed
to “provoke ideological con-
frontation.” She called the ac-
tions manifestations of a revival
of McCarthyism and efforts by
“anti-China forces” to contain
and suppress China, responding
to a question about state-media
reports on the alleged harass-
ment of Chinese crews.
Beijing has lodged com-
plaints with Washington and
demanded an end to the al-
leged harassment, Ms. Hua
said. “If the U.S. insists on es-
calating its provocative ac-
tions, China will definitely un-
dertake countermeasures.”
The U.S. departments of
State and Homeland Security
BYCHUNHANWONG
China Says U.S. Harries Ship, Airline Crews
A container ship operated by Cosco sitting in Hong Kong in July.PAUL YEUNG/BLOOMBERG NEWS©Photograph: Laurent Ballesta/Gombessa ProjectCOLLECTIONFifty Fathoms
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