North Dakota asks SCOTUS to Uphold, Divest or Ban Law Against TikTok

(Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images via the North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) – Following the passage of a federal law earlier this year that calls for the owners of social media app TikTok to either sell it or be subject to a ban on the app in the U.S., Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares filed an amicus brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to uphold the law.

TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, sued the U.S. government over the law, saying it impeded their First Amendment rights, but a federal appeals court recently upheld the law. The high court will hear oral arguments in the appeal case Jan. 10.

“Allowing TikTok to operate in the United States without severing its ties to the Chinese Communist Party exposes Americans to the undeniable risks of having their data accessed and exploited by the Chinese Communist Party,” Miyares, a Republican, said in a statement announcing the amicus brief. “The Supreme Court now has the chance to affirm Congress’s authority to protect Americans from foreign threats while ensuring that the First Amendment doesn’t become a tool to defend foreign adversaries’ exploitative practices.”

When the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was introduced in March, members of Virginia’s congressional delegation supported it. Democratic U.S. Reps. Abigail Spanberger and Bobby Scott said the measure would protect Americans against foreign digital threats, while U.S. Sens. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and Marco Rubio, R-Florida, who co-chair the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, supported the House’s action against TikTok.

In December 2023, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order banning the use of TikiTok “on any government-issued devices, including state-issued cell phones, laptops, or other devices capable of connecting to the internet except for public safety purposes.”

Miyares co-led the amicus brief alongside Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. Attorneys General in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah also signed on in support.