Shivangi Prakash-
Biden Administration requested two Federal Appeals Courts to dismiss the Justice Department’s legal arguments to Court orders that blocked a Trump-era attempt to prohibit new downloads of Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok.
President Joe Biden revoked a series of executive orders issued by former President Donald Trump last month that tried to prohibit new downloads of WeChat, TikTok, and other Chinese apps.
On June 22, the Commerce Department publicly removed a list of prohibited transactions with ByteDance-owned TikTok and Tencent-owned WeChat that had been issued in September and aimed to prevent users from downloading the applications.
The Justice Department said on Monday that the Government’s legal challenges were now moot. It asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the Third Circuit to dismiss its appeals.
Separately, the Justice Department stated in a petition with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that it had not yet decided how to proceed with its appeal of a Lower Court order that blocked the Trump administration’s attempts to impose limits on WeChat and other such Chinese apps.
The Government said it was in talks with the WeChat users’ attorneys about proper next actions in this appeal. The Government plans to inform the Court about its decision by July 26.
During Donald Trump’s presidency, the Commerce Department attempted to prohibit other transactions, thus banning WeChat’s use in the United States, and later attempted to impose similar limits on TikTok’s use.
In an interview with Reuters on June 28, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the department was “just getting started” with its review, which will involve an ‘evidence-based analysis’.
“The whole point of the executive order is to take really strong steps to protect Americans’ data from collection and utilization by foreign adversaries,” Raimondo said.
Another Trump directive, signed in January that targeted eight other communications and financial technology software apps, was also cancelled by Biden’s executive order. The Trump directive urged officials to prohibit transactions using eight Chinese apps, including Alipay from Ant Group and QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay from Tencent. There were no prohibitions imposed.
A separate US national security review of TikTok, launched in late 2019, remains active.
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