Attorney General Jason Miyares filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States along with 21 other states urging the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold the ban on TikTok that will go into place if their parent company doesn’t sell off their ownership of the platform.
Congress voted earlier this year to approve legislation that requires Bytedance, the parent company of TikTok, to divest their interests in the company due to their ties to the Chinese government.
In response, ByteDance and TikTok sued the federal government, but a federal appeals court upheld the law earlier this month, citing national security concerns.
Trump has indicated he would support allowing TikTok to continue to operate in the United States. He asked the Supreme Court to put a pause on the ban in order to find a resolution.
Miyares led the filing of this amicus brief urging SCOTUS to uphold the ban.
“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. Virginians deserve a government that stands firm in protecting their privacy and security,” Miyares said. “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.”
In addition to Virginia, Montana, 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 signed onto the brief.