US District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington on September 27
blocked the Commerce Department order hours before it was to prohibit new
downloads of the short video-sharing app.
The ban would have required Apple's and Alphabet's Google to
remove the app from their stores, preventing new users from downloading it or
existing users downloading updated versions. It would not have stopped existing
users from accessing the app on their devices.
Appeals Court Judges Judith Rogers, Patricia Millett, and
Robert Wilkins questioned lawyers for TikTok and the government for nearly 90
minutes on Monday morning. All three judges were nominated by previous
Democratic presidents.
Two of the judges expressed skepticism with a central
government argument about whether a prior case is applicable.
"I know you say it but Congress wrote this language --
it seems to just fly in the face of that," Rogers said.
On December 4, the Trump administration opted not to grant
TikTok-owner ByteDance a new extension of an order requiring the company to
divest TikTok's US assets. A lawyer for TikTok, Beth Brinkmann, said during the
court hearing there are "ongoing talks" over the app's fate.
President Donald Trump's order, issued in August, gave the
Justice Department the power to enforce the divestiture order once the deadline
expired. But over a week has passed and the department has not gone to court
seeking to compel divestiture.
The administration contends TikTok poses national security
concerns as the personal data of US users could be obtained by China's
government. TikTok, which has over 100 million US users, denies the allegation.
Under pressure from the US government, ByteDance has been in
talks for months to finalise a deal with Walmart and Oracle to shift TikTok's
US assets into a new entity aimed to satisfy the divestiture order.
On December 7, Judge Nichols separately granted a
preliminary injunction blocking the US Commerce Department from imposing
restrictions on TikTok that would have effectively barred its use in the United
States.
Nichols issued an order in a suit filed by ByteDance after
US District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Pennsylvania earlier blocked the
same restrictions set to take effect on November 12.
Beetlestone also blocked the app store ban. A separate
appeals court in Philadelphia is tentatively set to hold arguments on her
ruling on February 11.
The Commerce Department had sought to bar data hosting
within the United States for TikTok, content delivery services and other
technical transactions.
© Reuters
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