Duval Times

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, signed into law in April, prohibits ByteDance-controlled applications, including TikTok, from U.S. app store availability or web hosting services. The legislation addresses the national security threat posed by Communist China’s control of these apps.

TikTok has since brought legal challenges in Tiktok, et al. v. Garland, claiming that the bill is unconstitutional.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and U.S. Representative John Moolenaar (R-MI) led a bipartisan and bicameral group of colleagues in filing an Amicus brief in Tiktok, et al. v. Garland, defending the constitutionality of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

“…the Divestiture Act does not regulate speech or require any social-media company to stop operating in the United States. The Divestiture Act is instead focused entirely on the regulation of foreign adversary control and provides a clear, achievable path for affected companies to resolve the pressing and non-hypothetical national security threats posed by their current ownership structures.

“Backed by extensive fact finding about the national security threat to the American people posed by certain foreign adversary controlled applications, the Divestiture Act resembles and, indeed, is narrower than numerous other restrictions on foreign ownership that Congress has enacted in other statutory regimes. And Congress did not transcend the limits imposed by the First Amendment and other Constitutional restraints because ‘it is long settled as a matter of American constitutional law that foreign citizens outside U.S. territory do not possess rights under the U.S. Constitution.’”

Rubio has been vocal about stopping the Chinese Communist Party from using TikTok against the U.S., first addressing this issue in 2019.