Markey, Paul, Khanna: Supreme Court Should Reverse TikTok Ruling
Speculative national security concerns about the Chinese government abusing Americans’ data privacy aren’t enough to justify an unconstitutional law forcing ByteDance to divest TikTok, Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Thursday in an amicus brief they filed along with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.
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The three asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s ruling that the new law is constitutional under the First Amendment. Oral argument is scheduled for Friday.
The law’s objective of preventing Chinese content manipulation “reflects a desire to control the content on the TikTok platform and, in any event, could be achieved through a less restrictive alternative,” their brief said. “And its secondary justification of protecting users’ data from the Chinese government could not sustain the ban on its own and also overlooks that Congress did not consider whether less drastic mitigation measures could address those concerns.”