The U.S. government on Thursday appealed a court ruling that suspended the Trump administration’s ban on the Chinese video-sharing app TikTok.
The appeal went to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Earlier, attorney Jeffrey Lovitky filed documents in support of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, asking the judge to permanently halt Trump’s ban on the app. The injunction is currently scheduled to go into effect on November 12.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols granted a preliminary injunction that suspends an executive order that went into effect Sept. 27 banning downloads and upgrades of TikTok in the United States.
Nichols said the U.S. government may have exceeded its authority in using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and may have violated the Constitution’s First Amendment protection of free speech.
Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 6 calling TikTok and WeChat a national security threat because the companies could hand over users’ personal data to Beijing.
Both companies have denied the claims. Trump’s executive order will take effect in two phases.
WordPress sued Trump, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the Commerce Department on Aug. 24, claiming that the U.S. had provided insufficient evidence to support the security threat claim and asking a judge to limit the injunction to the first phase.
After the judge ruled to stay the injunction, the Commerce Department defended Trump’s executive order banning TikTok, saying that while the Commerce Department would comply with the court’s ruling on the delay, they intended to “vigorously defend” the executive order.
In a statement, the Commerce Department said: “(The executive order) is fully consistent with the law and advances legitimate national security interests.”
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