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The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court on Friday to deny Trump president-elect postponement request his decision on a TikTok ban will be implemented the day before his inauguration.
Attorney General Merrick Garland supported claims that the platform, owned and operated by the Chinese-owned company ByteDance, is a threat to national security.
“TikTok 2’s collection of sensitive data on about 170 million Americans and their contacts makes it a powerful tool for espionage, and TikTok’s role as a key communication channel makes it a powerful weapon for covert influence operations,” Garland said in Friday’s filing.
ByteDance is run by Chinese tech giant Zhang Yiming, who still holds more than 50 percent of the voting control over the privately held corporation that has raised concerns with lawmakers.
“As long as TikTok remains under (the People’s Republic of China’s) control, the PRC could use these weapons against the United States at any time, for example, at a crucial time during a crisis,” the attorney general wrote.
A lower US appeals court upheld the ban in early December before the case advanced in the Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court agreed to take up the case last month, setting the stage for a fast-paced and high-stakes battle over free speech.
Trump has asked for a delayed ruling in the hope that with more time he can “negotiate a resolution to save the platform” after a conversation with CEO of TikTok Shou Chew.
chew spoke before members of Congress last March to affirm the platform’s commitment to user safety and data protection among other regulations.
His visit to Capitol Hill helped solidify support for the application from Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who went claim the ban of the popular. video sharing app would violate the First Amendment.
“This divestment requirement is fully consistent with the First Amendment and our nation’s tradition of prohibiting or restricting foreign control of communications channels and other critical infrastructure,” Garland wrote in Friday’s brief. “By arguing otherwise, petitioners portray the Act as an effort to suppress disadvantaged views.”
“But nothing in the Act would prevent a post-divestment TikTok from presenting exactly the same content in exactly the same way,” he continued. “The Act is aimed at controlling a foreign adversary, not protected speech.”
The high court should issue a decision by January 19 to ensure that the platform remains available to US citizens in the Google and Apple app stores. Oral arguments are currently scheduled for January 10.
President Biden, who has done it encouraged prohibition despite using the application during his re-election bid, he does have the authority to delay the ban for 90 days if the company makes significant progress toward divestment.
trump bent about their support for the app earlier this week.
“Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?” Trump wrote on Truth Social, accompanied by an image promoting his account stats on the app.
The president-elect’s personal account has received 1.4 billion total views and averages 24 million views per post, according to his release.
